The Puppeteer King

by Chris Ward

  He hadn’t locked it. Nozomi was sure of it, even though she had tried that door on several occasions and it had always been locked. Perhaps he had just forgotten. It wasn’t like him to forget something important, but then it wasn’t like her master to dance or sing like some baroque Fifties musical star trapped in time.

  Nozomi waited, torn by indecision. If her master was up and about it meant her tentative assassination mission had to be aborted, but while the only safe thing to do was return to her room and pretend to sleep, she so desperately wanted to see the woman inside that room to whom he had spoken in Japanese. Who was she? Why was she here?

  She sat in the dark for another fifteen minutes, until she was certain he wasn’t coming back. The ancient, musty chill of the old theatre was starting to sink into her bones, and the thought of her warm blankets fought with her curiosity, trying to drag her away.

  Just one quick peek, and then she would hurry back. Just one quick peek.

  She slipped across the corridor and crouched down by the door, listening for the sound of footsteps. Nothing. She reached up and pulled the handle, opening the door just a crack.

  Inside, the room was dark and quiet. It smelled of lavender. Nozomi could see nothing other than the slightly lighter shadows of the corridor behind her reflected in the dirty glass mirror. The sitting woman was invisible in the darkness.

  Nozomi felt up the wall with her fingers, looking for the light switch her master had used. As she found it she fought one last urge to turn and run, then she flicked it on, filling the room with a light so clinically bright it made her wince.

  The woman was sitting in a chair facing the mirror, which Nozomi saw wasn’t dirty from disuse as she had thought but had been smeared with grease to obscure the reflection, leaving everything in the room, including herself and the woman as indistinct smears of colour.

  The room itself was like a museum from a bygone age. Tatty chairs, their faded cushions spitting vomit-yellow sponge out of dozens of rips and tears, were pushed up against dressing tables with white painted surfaces now chipped and peeling, while cracked floral-patterned vases filled with dusty plastic flowers gave the room a vintage gaudiness that made Nozomi feel like she’d stepped into a waxwork museum from the 18th Century.

  As she stared at the ancient plastic roses in a vase to her right, she realised she was looking everywhere but at the woman slumped in the chair in front of her, facing the biggest of the mirrors. She forced herself to look and saw the woman was wearing simple contemporary clothing over her thin frame, black trousers under a floral skirt and a denim jacket that Nozomi herself might have worn. Her hair was dark brown and fell straight to her shoulders, glossy and shiny like a wig.

  Of course. This was just a mannequin, a plastic clothing model that her master must have found in one of the old storerooms. That he had been dancing with it was no surprise; nothing he did could possibly shock her.

  She let out a long slow breath, just as the mannequin began to turn, its neck creaking as if metal joints needed oil. Nozomi started to back away, only to find strong, bony hands closing over her shoulders, holding her in place.

  Nozomi screamed. Human eyes stared out at her from a face that appeared to be half living tissue and half plastic, like plaster cast poured over a skull. Flushes of colour appeared between shiny patches, like the flicker of fish under the green surface of a lake.

  ‘What brings you out so late at night, my dear?’ her master said from her shoulder, and even though she sensed she could have thrown him off and run, she was frozen with fear, unable to even lift her arms. ‘I see you two have already met.’

  The corpse-woman cocked her head and her half-human mouth stretched in a lopsided smile. ‘Nice to meet you, Nozomi,’ the woman said, the voice coming simultaneously from the woman’s gap-toothed mouth and from the mouth of her master standing behind her, a reedy, harmonic symphony.

  With terror rising inside her, Nozomi struggled in her master’s arms, trying to find the inner strength that his surgery had put into her, but suddenly it seemed absent, switched off permanently like a blown bulb.

  ‘Don’t be so hasty, my little princess,’ Kurou said. ‘You two haven’t been properly introduced yet. Nozomi Okamoto, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Miss Akane Yamaguchi.’

  25

  Spiders and crows

  Peter didn’t even have to wait for the newspapers. The story of Dave Balls’ death was featured on the morning news.

  Of course they didn’t show the body, but they did show an aerial shot of what someone had spelled out in old rope in front of where the body had been found lying.

  Guerra.

  War.

  Balls had died of multiple stab wounds, so the report said. A murder weapon was yet to be found, and the police were appealing for witnesses.

  Almost as soon as the report was over, Peter’s phone started to ring. He ignored the first few calls, instead logging on to the computer to see what the commentators were saying and to find out any information that hadn’t yet been officially released.

  Word on the blogosphere was that Balls hadn’t died on Las Ramblas as had been suggested by the news program, but had been dragged there from some other place. The murder was already being linked to that of the dead tourist, even though there were no similarities. Balls’ assault at the hands of a group of drunks was also big news. Had he been involved in organised crime? Had the first attack been a warning that had been ignored?

  And what of the slogan, spelled out in pieces of old netting arranged into letters? Was this a war between rival gangs or something bigger, something related to the upcoming referendum for Catalonian independence?

  Peter could silence them all with a couple of forum posts, but where would that leave him, or the rest of them for that matter?

  Slav and the others had left the body on the rooftop. The only possible explanation for it appearing on Las Ramblas was that the spider or whoever was controlling it had gone back there and dragged it out.

  And the word?

  It was quite clear to Peter who the word was aimed at.

  Him. Them. The street performers of Barcelona. The war was between his group and a rival group moving in to take their place. To what end he didn’t know, but the facts spoke for themselves.

  He logged on to the private internet group where he contacted all of the other street performers, and typed a quick message:

  * * *

  “In light of Dave’s death, we’re officially on strike until we have more information. No one is to head to Las Ramblas today until I give the all clear.”

  * * *

  There would be a fallout, he knew, because many of the street performers lived day to day and couldn’t afford to stay at home, but he needed to do something. Dave was dead. He couldn’t let the others carry on as though nothing had happened.

  The trap would begin to close soon, though.

  Edgar had taken Laurent to hospital. It would only be a matter of time before the police started making connections and asking questions.

  His phone was continuing to buzz on the table behind him. He picked it up to call a connection in the city council, but just as he unlocked his phone an unrecognized number flashed up and he pressed answer by accident.

  It was a TV station, wanting a statement about the death.

  ‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ Peter said. ‘I just saw it on the news.’ He hung up before he could say anything that could be twisted into a headline for some follow up news item.

  Head of street performer union has no idea. Peter Salvadore didn’t know about the murder. What is he hiding?

  He checked the online group and as expected the messages were a mixture of dismay and anger.

  ‘Dave is dead? Oh my god.’

  ‘What are we supposed to do now?’

  ‘We’re not all employed by the council, Peter. This is our livelihood.’

  ‘Let’s find who did this and fuck the bastards up.’
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  But the last was the most significant:

  Edgar: ‘Laurent’s dead. I got him to a doctor, but it was too late.’

  Peter opened a new window and quickly typed a private message to Edgar:

  ‘Where did you take him?’

  The response was quick. ‘Don’t worry, not to a hospital. I took him to a friend, a guy who works for himself under the law. He did his best but Laurent was too far gone. What do we do now, Peter?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Peter replied. ‘This is getting out of hand. Stay low for a while and look after yourself.’

  When he closed the private message window he saw the main feed was going haywire with messages.

  ‘We take them out one by one.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, they’re too dangerous.’

  ‘I’m getting out of here on the next train.’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Why don’t we go to the police?’

  ‘We need a meeting.’

  ‘What if they come after the rest of us???’

  Peter frowned a moment, looking back up the feed. The single word “hello” stuck out so obviously that he almost missed it.

  Red. The word was in red, while the rest of the feed was defaulted to black. It wasn’t an option anyone could change because Peter had full administrative control over the group.

  ‘Hello, are you listening?’

  The other messages started to calm down. One person asked: ‘Who is this chump?’

  ‘I’m the spider.’

  A flurry of abuse followed. Peter waited patiently until it had begun to calm down, then he typed, ‘Spider, this is Peter Salvadore. What do you want?’

  ‘A truce.’

  ‘Fuck you, we’ll get you!!!’

  ‘You piece of shit—’

  Peter muted each user as the abuse came. They could read but not comment again until he allowed it.

  ‘Spider, please continue.’

  ‘I wish to arrange a meeting with your people.’

  ‘What kind of meeting?’

  ‘To propose a truce.’

  ‘Why would we want that? Your people have been moving in on Las Ramblas without official approval. We should go to the police—’

  ‘Then why haven’t you? Why the clubs and sticks in the night? A simple dialogue is all I wish for. Followed up by a settlement.’

  ‘What kind of settlement?’

  ‘Cash.’

  Peter’s fingers paused over the keyboard. After everything that had happened could he allow himself to be bought out? He remembered that the others were still able to read the postings. Several had already sent him private messages, demanding to have their posting privileges restored.

  ‘I have a little work for you,’ the spider added. ‘For anyone who wishes to participate. For one night only. The fee is one hundred thousand Euros. Each.’

  Private message boxes began to pop up again and Peter muted each conversation without replying. Back on the main message board he wrote: ‘That’s a lot of money to be throwing around, Spider. There are more than thirty of us.’

  ‘So? I have money.’

  Peter took a deep breath. He glanced over the private messages and the overwhelming majority wanted to know more information. It was easy to forget that many of these people were just a couple of bad days away from being homeless. They were desperate. A hundred thousand Euros was a lot of money to someone who considered a twenty-Euro note to be a fortune.

  ‘Prove it,’ he typed.

  ‘I already have. I’ve deposited a box containing fifty thousand Euros in used notes at a location which I will reveal to you in a private message. After you have retrieved the money you may do with it as you wish. You may also tell your companions that I am serious.’

  Peter scowled at the screen. ‘How will I know it’s not a bomb?’ he typed.

  The response was chilling: ‘If I wanted you dead you’d already be dead. Your two friends got above themselves and paid for it. Do not make that mistake again.’

  Peter wanted to switch off the computer and run. Private messages were flashing at him, demanding that he accept the money, but he was better off than most of the others. He could afford to walk away.

  A message box flashed up, this one bordered in red.

  ‘Raval Quarter, corner of Esprito Street, opposite the café with the blue door. The trash can. Don’t be late. The refuse collection truck comes at 11a.m., taking your fortune with it.’

  The doubts persisted. He grimaced. ‘How do I know this isn’t a wind up?’

  ‘Take that smirk off your face and stop doubting me, fool.’

  Peter gasped and jerked backwards. He had a webcam, a tiny camera embedded into the upper casing of his laptop’s screen, but could another user activate it? Was he being observed right now?

  ‘Scared, are you, Peter? No need to be scared unless I send the crow after you.’

  The screen flickered. Peter fell off his chair, landing in a heap on the floor, a scream rasping from his airless lungs. As he rolled on to his front he wheezed, trying to recover his breath. He looked up at the screen, which was now showing the random message boxes again.

  The face had appeared for just an instant, but it was burned onto Peter’s memory. Pressed close up to a camera lens so that the features had been distorted, it had been something half man, half bird, a large, crooked nose obscuring beady black eyes and chapped, cracked lips framing a smirking grin. Peter had once seen a documentary about subliminal messages spliced into old horror movie reels and this had been something like that, only for that momentary instant that the face was there in front of him, he had seen one eye half close in a wink.

  He had come face to face with the voice of the spider, who was watching him through his own webcam.

  He climbed to his feet, circling a few feet away from the computer like an unarmed hunter cornered by a wounded boar. He stared at the screen, waiting for the face to appear again, but at the same time feeling ridiculous. Even if the spider or the crow or whatever the hell it was could see him, it couldn’t get him. It was on the other end of a fibre-optic cable somewhere. His door was locked, he was safe.

  Was he really?

  Would a locked door keep out something that could manipulate Peter’s own webcam from another computer? Somehow he doubted it, which was all the more reason for him to follow the spider’s instructions. There had been three murders in Barcelona over the last few days; he didn’t want to be the fourth.

  When he plucked up the courage to sit back down, he sat at an angle, looking at the screen out of one eye, like a kid watching a horror movie through his fingers. He waited for the faced to appear again, but a little line of red text beneath the spider’s last message said “user offline”.

  Peter knew a little about computers, and against his better judgment, did an immediate search for the user’s IP address, which would give him a location. He typed a few commands and then waited while the results loaded.

  When the user’s location flashed up, Peter was hardly surprised:

  * * *

  “The South Pole of Inaccessibility, the third green bungalow down from the Statue of Lenin. Did you really think you could track me?”

  * * *

  The personable nature of it made him shudder. He closed the window down and typed a few responses to the messages that were still flashing up. Yes, he would go and look for the money. No, he hadn’t decided what to do. No, please don’t take matters into your own hands. Just be patient. This is something we have to consider as a group or we risk getting picked off one by one.

  They had to hold themselves together, he thought as he switched off his computer, then immediately set his phone to silent as the calls started to come in. They couldn’t afford to go to pieces over this. Too much damage had already been done.

  Peter looked up at the clock. It was just after nine thirty. He already felt like he’d been up for hours.

  With a sigh he took a light jacket off a stand behind his doo
r. He would have to hurry to make it to the Raval Quarter before the trash collectors came at 11a.m.

  #

  Kurou switched off the computer and pushed his wheelie chair backwards, spinning across the floor in a graceful arc towards a computer screen that was scrolling through lists of names in a vast database belonging to the Barcelona tourist board. While the little conversation with the head monkey of the street performers’ union had gone well, he had bigger problems to deal with. It was unlikely that he would find anything, but he had input a number of criteria into the hacked database and was pulling up names that fit the terms on his list.

  Someone was out there trying to catch him. As always, someone had thrown a line to catch the Crow and he was trying to figure out what might be the bait. It had always been a risk when he decided to roost for a while, which was why he had always stayed on the road with the girl dragging along behind him. Sometimes though, he needed to stop for a while to get something done.

  It would have been perfect. With hopefully a little snow falling outside, he could have performed his Christmas theatre to a packed audience at La Sagrada Familia, a display the city would never have forgotten. Now, he no longer had the time.

  He didn’t have two months to wait while he was slowly tracked down. Whoever had murdered the tourist and left their little calling card with the police was a professional, and professionals tended to find people in the end. His once-humans weren’t designed as a defensive force; they were elaborate works of art that just happened to be a little dangerous. They weren’t weapons.

  He would need to batten down the hatches, as his old British master might once have said. Weather the jolly old storm and stay down in the trenches, tally ho.

  He had a few days at most. He would need to manufacture the situation a little in order to fulfil his project, then he and the girl would have to leave before whatever hawk was swooping down on him got a hold of his tail feathers.