The Waning Age

by S. E. Grove

  The bolt would probably hold for about ten seconds. I launched myself down the stairs, hollering for Deliverance. She was still standing there in the corridor, eyes wide under the bonnet. “Fish,” I said. “We have to get out. Everyone.” They were after me, and I knew it, but I didn’t want to be responsible if the Fish decided to broaden the playing field.

  Deliverance stepped past me and shut the inner door that I’d just come through, throwing the deadbolt.

  “That won’t be enough,” I said, pulling her away from the door. “There are eight of them. Sorry,” I added.

  She didn’t ask about the apology. “Go tell Steadfast,” she said. “There’s a way out through the garden. I’ll get the others.”

  I ran down the corridor toward the garden and burst into the little oasis of azaleas and maples and gravel. Steadfast and her eager convert were both looking expectantly toward the open doorway. “Fish,” I said. “Deliverance says there’s a way out through the garden.”

  “What about—”

  “She’s getting the others,” I interrupted.

  Steadfast pointed to the rear of the garden, but all I saw there was a bamboo screen. “There’s a ladder back there,” she said.

  I hurried to the screen and found the ladder she was talking about. It was a rickety bamboo thing that probably wouldn’t hold more than a hundred fifty pounds. I had to hope these Puritans were as abstemious as the real ones. At the top of the garden wall, at street level, was an iron fence. I couldn’t tell from where I was standing, but it looked like the fence bordered a walkway between buildings. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any Fish there.

  I held the base of the ladder and urged Steadfast’s convert to climb up. The whole thing rattled like a bundle of twigs, but it didn’t break. As she was clinging to the metal fence at the top and maneuvering her way over it, Deliverance ran into the garden with four more Puritans. I looked skeptically at their dresses. Perhaps later I would suggest to Steadfast that her notions about women’s emancipation extend to their choice of wardrobe.

  There was a crash from inside the building that announced the demise of the deadbolt. Deliverance had the sense to close the garden door, and with another Puritan she blocked it with a stone bench. The latch, naturally, was on the other side. Steadfast was already climbing the ladder, and the other ladies followed suit. I urged them on while holding the ladder in place. Really, holding the ladder was an excuse. If the Fish made their way into the garden, the Puritans would be made into mincemeat, and then I’d be stuck there all day. As Deliverance was flinging herself over the metal fence, the stone bench toppled, and the garden door was flung open. I was already halfway up the rickety ladder. In the time it took them to cross the garden, I reached the top.

  To my surprise, the three beards didn’t shoot. When I swung over the metal fence I saw why. Deliverance stood at the top with a semiautomatic pointed at the Fish. Her bonnet had fallen off. She looked much prettier without it, even with the grimly pursed lips. Weapons for weaklings indeed, Gao, I thought. I reached through the metal fence and awkwardly pulled the bamboo ladder up after me. Then I tossed it aside. “Go,” Deliverance said, glancing at me quickly.

  “You’re coming, too.”

  “In one sec,” she agreed. She fired twice into the beautiful little garden, sending clusters of gravel flying. It gave us enough time to duck down the passageway toward Sutter Street. The shots they fired back bit chunks out of the neighboring building. Only seconds later, I heard the first police siren wailing.

  18

  NATALIA

  OCTOBER 12—AFTERNOON

  Deliverance and I turned onto Sutter Street as the sirens neared. She pulled me into a consignment shop and closed the door behind us. The shopkeeper, a slender gentleman in a mint-green sweater who was holding two hats up to a customer, turned to us and shook his head. “Oh no you don’t. Out.”

  That was pretty bold, considering that Deliverance was still holding her weapon. Between that and the Puritan dress she looked a little like a nun on a rampage. She ignored the shopkeeper. Without a word, she starting taking off her dress. I didn’t interfere. Under the dress she had on black leggings and a button-down, and she tucked the gun into a holster. From some unseen pocket she drew out a wallet and waved it at the indignant shopkeeper. I caught a glimpse: police badge.

  Well, that explained a lot.

  “Give me those hats,” she said to the mint sweater.

  “Under no circumstances.”

  “Did you not see my badge?”

  “You can’t just take things,” he protested.

  “Would you rather we hide here while the eight Fish on my tail search the nearby stores?” I asked.

  He handed me the hats. A purple cloche, which I passed skeptically to Deliverance, and a broad-brimmed straw hat that I balanced on my head. “Thank you,” I said. I folded my own hat carefully and tucked it into my bag.

  Outside, a dozen police motorcycles sat in the road like glistening cockroaches. Four store windows had been smashed to bits, either by bullets or by the muscular lady with the bat. I could hear the messy sounds of pursuit from all sides. From the amount of gunfire, it didn’t sound too good for the Fish, but it didn’t sound like they were making things easy for the cops, either.

  Deliverance took my arm and walked me silently along Sutter Street eastward. I stayed along for the ride, curious where we were going. We’d gone a block from the clothing store when the mermaid stepped out from behind a white van. She’d been waiting. She stood on the sidewalk in front of us, holding the sai comfortably against her quads like oversized forks. Deliverance was still holding her semiautomatic, so for a few seconds we all just stood there, measuring.

  The mermaid wasn’t interested in the semiautomatic. She had eyes for me only. Her face was bonier than I remembered, and the dark green makeup made her look even older, like a sea witch with a few lifetimes behind her. But I had no doubt who she was.

  “Hi, Coral.”

  Her eyes crinkled a little. “Hey there, Nat,” she said quietly.

  Deliverance kept her eyes on the sai, and I could feel her listening to the gunfire, occasional bursts of it, still not too near.

  “It’s been a while,” I said affably. “What have you been up to?”

  She gave me a little wink but no smile. “You know, fishing.”

  I nodded sagely. “Dangerous business.”

  “You’re the one in danger, Nat.” She tucked the sai into her belt abruptly and folded her arms over her chest. I guess she didn’t like her chances with the semiautomatic. “Your bounty is too high,” she said, her voice still quiet. “Every Fish in the Bay has your face on a screen.”

  Deliverance moved a few paces forward. “Step against the wall and put your hands behind your head.”

  Coral glanced at her with faint interest, as if she’d just noticed the cop was there. Then she gave me a small nod. Without a word she jumped, leapfrogging off the hood of the white van beside her. I didn’t even hear her footsteps on the pavement. When we rounded the van, she was gone.

  Deliverance muttered something under her breath that sounded like “slippery worm.” To me she said, “Come on.” Three blocks down she turned in to an alley, skipped down a short flight of steps, and unlocked a battered beige door onto a ground-floor apartment. The room had seen better days. Wall-to-wall carpeting, a single bed, a recliner, and a coffee table piled high with soda cans. Deliverance apparently played many parts: Puritan crusader, undercover cop, deadbeat bachelor with bad habits.

  She motioned to the recliner and I perched on the very, very edge of it. The corduroy looked like it hadn’t been cleaned. Ever.

  Deliverance tapped a very small screen decal on her inner wrist. “This is Officer O’Rourke,” she said into the decal. She listened. “That’s fine by me.” She listened again. “Will do.” She tapped the decal and dropp
ed her arm. “Friendly with a lot of Fish, are you?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I was friends with her before. Before fading. I haven’t seen her since high school.”

  “You should report her.”

  I made a noncommittal noise. “So,” I said amicably. “What gives?”

  Officer O’Rourke sat on her bed and looked thoughtful. “We’re just waiting it out.”

  I’d figured that much. “Why are you undercover with Ashael’s Cave?”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “Lots of churches have cops undercover.”

  I nodded back. From Gao, I’d learned that religious organizations could function as fronts for prison bosses. The churches do charity in prisons, and they get to know the prisoners. Mostly it’s completely innocent, and every once in a while it’s anything but. “Ashael’s Cave just seems kind of small-scale.”

  “Yeah. It does.” She gave me a sideways look. “But New Age Christian cults aren’t always what they seem. I can’t really say more.”

  “Got it,” I acknowledged.

  She leaned back against the wall and crossed her legs on the bed. “So why are the Fish after you?”

  “I did a little dance with one of them yesterday. They were on the BART and it was unavoidable. I lost her yesterday afternoon but I guess they tracked me down.”

  “Not Coral, I take it. Which one?”

  “The younger female. Bad lipstick.”

  “Yeah, I saw her.” She nodded knowingly. Then she tapped on the decal affixed to her wrist for a few seconds. “What kind of info do they have on you?”

  “Just a photo I think.”

  She tapped around some more. “Oh yeah. Here you are. Eighty-six thousand dollars. That’s bad,” she added helpfully.

  “Thanks.”

  “This is one of those apps where they have a gallery of kill shots.” She scrolled. “Here’s a guy they got yesterday. Nice. Very nice. They favor dismemberment.”

  “I should think the site would be shut down.”

  “We have people on it twenty-four seven. They just bounce up in another location.” She dropped her wrist. “Well, once we catch the Fish who originally posted the bounty, we can usually negotiate to get the listing taken down. Then you should be in the clear.”

  “Lucky for me you were around. I appreciate the help.”

  “They’re vermin.” She rolled her eyes. “Where Fish are concerned, I’d gladly sidestep arrests altogether. And no matter how much damage they do, there’s always some crackpot trying to argue that all they need is a little counseling. More like a little lobotomizing.”

  Well. That was one solution.

  She put her hands back behind her head. “What’s your real reason for tracking down Hoffman? Not that it’s any of my business.”

  I told her. Nothing I was doing was illegal—not yet, anyway—and she seemed well-disposed given that she’d saved me from eight carnivorous Fish. The story impressed her. “That . . .” She shook her head. “You could not have picked a bigger Goliath.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Good luck,” she said.

  People were saying that to me a lot lately, and for some reason it wasn’t encouraging. “It sounds quiet out there,” I said, getting up.

  “Yup.” She got to her feet as well and pulled the purple cloche back on. Maybe she’d taken it because she liked it. “I’ll walk you to the station. We’ll see how many Fish they caught and you can give them a description of any who got away. Including Coral.”

  I stifled a groan. This was not how I wanted to spend the rest of my afternoon. “In case the whole RealCorp thing didn’t make it clear, I’m kind of in a rush . . .”

  Officer O’Rourke shook her head once and her tone was uncompromising. “Lo siento. We’ve got to do it.”

  I sighed. “Fine.”

  * * *

  —

  Despite the generous gunfire, they hadn’t caught any of the Fish. (Guess Gao was right about guns after all.) So I had to give a description for each of them, and since most of them I’d seen only fleetingly, we spent a lot of time going around and around in circles. Japantown doesn’t have as many surveillance cameras as other places, apparently, and the Ashael’s Cave people didn’t have one outside their door. So it was up to me to tell them about Coral, the bad lipstick, the weight lifter with the bat, the bearded gunmen, the cowboy, and the cane cutter. I felt like I was describing a failed circus act, and by the end I could tell the cop taking my descriptions was as sick of the Fish as I was.

  When I was free to leave, it was evening. No time for Marin County. All I had time to do was call Glout, and he didn’t answer. So much for keeping me updated. It was weighing on me that Cal had been missing for more than twenty-four hours. To him it would feel like an eternity. It was an eternity. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours.

  As I rode the BART home I put the ticking clock aside and tried to tally my successes. I had a lead on Hoffman. I had a way into Philbrick’s house. One of the two had to work out, right?

  Maybe it was the exhaustion, but as we rumbled through the tunnel to the East Bay, both my leads seemed too uncertain, too flimsy, too insubstantial. It felt like I was trying to get to Cal across a high wire through the fog. I had to hope that when the fog lifted, I’d find something solid under my feet. Something real that would carry me across. Vain hopes are not hard wires.

  19

  CALVINO

  October 12

  Dear Nat,

  I have told Dr. Glout that I won’t answer his questions anymore. I said I would only write to you. I am writing on paper so that he can’t read what I’m writing.

  Dr. Glout said you came to see me. That made me feel a little better if it’s true. I would like to leave this place now. I don’t know what he told you, but I am not staying here because I want to. Maybe he told you something different. Dr. Glout just keeps saying one more test, one more test.

  The problem is that I am not even sure who Dr. Glout is. That is the name of the person who writes to me while I’m in here but I have never met him. For a while I thought it might just be a program, but I think it is a real person. But who? The only person I have seen here is Dr. Baylor who brought me in the first place and then left and then the next thing I knew it was Dr. Glout writing to me. I feel like if I could just see him then I might be able to figure out if he is telling the truth or not.

  I thought about it and maybe the person who writes to me as Dr. Glout is not really in charge. He may not even be a doctor. He may not even be a HE. He might be a she or a them. Someone else is deciding what to do and “Dr. Glout” is just following directions. That is a scary thought.

  It could even be that you are right next door but they won’t tell me that you are so that the test will be more real. Maybe they are just trying to scare me on purpose. That would not be so bad. It’s like you said last time at school, just a test.

  I think if I had a number in mind it would be easier. How many more hours of this.

  I have been planning what we will do when I am done here finally. I have a lot of time to plan.

  Nat, I was thinking. If I am here for so many tests, there must be something really wrong with me. I think maybe you didn’t want to make me feel bad, and that is why you never said so. I understand why you would do that. But now I’m worried that whatever is wrong with me is actually really bad. Dr. Glout keeps writing it’s not, it’s not bad at all, but that just doesn’t make sense. If there were nothing wrong with me, I wouldn’t be here. I guess I am actually scared to find out what the results of these tests are. I hope you are here with me when they come back with the test results.

  I miss you.

  Love,

  Cal

  20

  NATALIA

  OCTOBER 12—EVENING

  I debated trying to squeeze in a t
rip to Marin before I was due at the Philbrick castle, but in the end I calculated that Philbrick was still the shorter route to Cal. Tomorrow was Saturday. Philbrick would possibly be at home while I did desultory cleaning. If I could somehow bring him around, Cal would be out. Whereas with Hoffman, even if I won him over instantly, I still had to jump through many legal hoops, and those took time.

  I arranged with Cass, Tabby, and Joey to meet them at noon so we could all ride out to Marin together. Cass and Tabby’s refurbished and minuscule Ford coupe was guaranteed to be less spacious than the Crystal Cleaners vehicle, but using it meant I could avoid starting off my crime spree with car theft. I still hadn’t told Cass and Tabby about the Philbrick angle. Maybe a bad call, but in my defense I did tell Joey all about it so that he would know where I was if the wolves tore me to pieces.

  When I drove up to the castle the next morning, it looked the same as the day before and there were no wolves in sight. Still silent. Still eerie. I rang the bell, and the iron gate rolled open. I got back into the Crystal Cleaners car (it was more spacious than the coupe, but it reeked of bleach), pulled in to the driveway, and stepped out with just the cleaning bucket. The back of the car had all kinds of gadgets. I wasn’t about to unpack the full arsenal unless I had to.

  I rang the bell. The door was opened seconds later by a middle-aged white man who looked extremely well cared for. And content. Eyebrows neutral, eyes relaxed, mouth slightly turned up. I almost called him Mr. Philbrick and then I realized he was wearing starched cotton gloves.

  The castle was so white that even the servants were white.

  “Crystal Cleaners,” I said. Was I supposed to shake hands with him? I wasn’t sure. His easy stance at the door, the suit that I now realized was a uniform, and the sound of early-morning partying from inside the house were confusing my sense of propriety. Fortunately he knew exactly what to do.