String City

by Graham Edwards

  I glanced up. The loony sentries were playing tug o’war in the rafters: two of them pulling, the third playing the part of the rope.

  “Seems to me those guys are several jokers short of a deck.”

  They are starving, poor darlings. Without fresh blood, their minds have come loose. Yet they refuse to eat each other out of loyalty to me. It can only go on so long. Sooner or later one of them will snap.

  As she spoke, one of them did. The two doing the pulling yanked so hard that the third came apart in the middle. The pieces came our way. Deliciosa and I stepped smartly aside. Arachne tilted up her face and bathed in the rain of spider guts.

  “What about you, Arachne?” I said. “You must be starving too.”

  I waited, fully expecting her to tuck into the spider organ buffet draped across her shoulders. But her mouth remained closed.

  I am different. The fluids inside me are as much human now as they are spider. I do not relish ichor the way my spiderlings do.

  “I’d heard it leaves an aftertaste.”

  Long ago, my own dietary requirements became even more specialised than those which now cripple my poor doomed soldiers. My hybrid metabolism requires me to ingest one particular substance at least three times a day. Without it, I will die.

  “And that substance is?”

  She waved gore-streaked hands at the gigantic corpse swinging over her head. Ambrosia. The food of the gods. In short, the blood of Pallas Athene.

  I stared at the dead goddess. Even in death she still looked formidable. Her face was white as milk; her arms hung loose, her fingertips nearly brushing the floor. The fire hydrant was still sticking out of her neck: clearly the source of Arachne’s supply of goddess blood. At the same time I was distracted by the round metal shield on Pallas Athene’s breast. The shield held the head of Medusa. The gorgon’s face looked like the molding on a coin. The whole shield looked like a giant penny. The sight of it made me shudder.

  Deliciosa touched my arm. “Are you all right?”

  “Dandy,” I said. To Arachne I said, “You’ve had that corpse hanging here a while. Ever since you broke out of that oubliette, actually. Seems to me you’ve been planning this whole thing a long time.”

  You could say that killing Pallas Athene was a box I was keen to tick. But I have always been partial to the taste of ambrosia. Its transformation into an essential foodstuff was what you might call a happy accident. Arachne scowled, her contrition gone. I saw again the vicious spider queen I’d come to hate. At least, it was until this morning.

  “Why? What happened?”

  This!

  Arachne opened her cavernous mouth and bit deep into Pallas Athene’s dangling finger with her scythe-like teeth. The teeth sliced right through the finger at the first knuckle. The severed fingertip dangled for a moment on a single strip of skin before dropping to the floor like a dead albatross. White powder drifted from the stump. Ribbons of flesh hung like tickertape. Not a drop of blood flowed.

  I stepped up to the wound, fascinated.

  “I thought ambrosia never dried up.” I peered at the stump. It’s not often you see a goddess cross-sectioned.

  It doesn’t. Someone came here last night while I was sleeping and drained the corpse entirely dry. That is why I called you here, gumshoe. Some low-life crook has stolen my liquor, and I want you to get it back!

  88

  I WAS HALFWAY to the door when Deliciosa caught up with me.

  “Won’t you at least try?” she said.

  “You’re the cop,” I said, still walking. “You find the thief.”

  “I’ve tried. But I’m no detective. Please stay.”

  “Give me one reason I should.”

  Then Arachne called out from the shadows.

  If you solve the mystery, she said, I will show you how to find the girl you have lost.

  I stopped. I turned slowly on my heels. I stared at the spider queen.

  “You know where Zephyr is?” I said.

  89

  I STARTED BY interviewing the two remaining guards.

  “Who locks up the place at night?” I asked the first.

  “Don’t ask me,” said the spider, drooling. “I lie.”

  “Hah!” said the second. “He tells truth. It’s me what lies!”

  “How many exits are there?” I said.

  “Eight billion and three!”

  “Zero!”

  “Take the tangent!”

  “Subtract the number you first thought of!”

  “And swallow!”

  Time for a different tack.

  “What’s your name,” I asked the first spider.

  “Not guilty!”

  “And yours?” I said to the second.

  “White with sugar!”

  I was about to get tough when the first spider bit the head off the second. The decapitated body drummed its legs, flipped on its back and squirted white streamers from its spinnerets. The head snapped its jaws twice, then fell still. Number one sucked up the ichor from its dead buddy, after which its abdomen swelled to bursting point, then burst. Shiny goo splattered the wall. Spider shells spun at my feet like broken crockery.

  “Guess I’m running out of suspects,” I said.

  I told you it was a waste of time, said Arachne. They didn’t know anything.

  “Process of elimination. Just doing my job.”

  Well get on with it. I’m thirsty!

  I bit back a curse. “Do you keep this place locked up?”

  Of course I do! As soon as I moved in I had dimensional deadbolts fitted to all the exits.

  This was surer ground. “Deadbolts? What make?”

  As if I would remember such a thing!

  “Did you keep the packaging?”

  There may be a box under the stairs.

  Deliciosa helped me rummage through a pile of desiccated spider corpses. They spilled like cans in a supermarket display. Behind them was a stack of wooden crates marked Fung-Hwang. Below the lettering was a stencil of a bird in a bath of fire.

  “Phoenix Securities,” I said. “I know these guys. Arachne—you were stiffed.”

  I dragged one of the crates over to the spider queen.

  “See the small print?” I said. “Phoenix bolts only work in seven dimensions. That leaves the other four wide open.”

  So? What burglar ever came in through such rarefied territories?

  “You’d be surprised.”

  I went back to looking for clues. This time I concentrated on the area round Pallas Athene’s corpse. The higher dimensions are folded up pretty small, so for someone to have come in through one of them, they’d have had to aim themselves like a homing missile. I split the search into quadrants, using an optic sweeper to home in on the molecular structure of the floor. Still nothing.

  “The place looks clean,” I said, puzzled. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything?”

  Nothing at all. But I rose late, some time after my devoted sentries. The dehydration has made me very drowsy.

  I glanced at the dead guards. They’d spilled everything they were going to spill.

  By the time I was awake, Arachne went on, the guards had already concluded their morning routine. There was nothing to see.

  “Wait,” I said. “‘Morning routine’. What does that mean?”

  As you can see, the web that once adorned the interior of the pyramid has rotted away. The dust continues to sift down overnight. My guards were in the habit of clearing the floor of debris every morning.

  “Those bozos cleared the crime scene?” I said slowly.

  I never really thought of it like that.

  “Where did they put the garbage?”

  They did not “put” it anywhere.

  “They didn’t?”

  No. They ate it.

  90

  THE LAST THING I wanted to do was stick my hand inside a dead spider. Deliciosa wasn’t so squeamish.

  “I’m on intimate terms with corrupted flesh,” s
he said, thrusting her hand inside the first corpse.

  It took her less than a minute to find it. It was inside the spider who thought his name was “White with sugar”.

  “I don’t know if this will help,” Deliciosa said, holding up her closed fist. “It doesn’t seem like much.”

  “Show me,” I said.

  She opened her fingers, showed me what the spider had licked up off the floor from beneath Pallas Athene’s corpse.

  It was a small blue feather.

  91

  AFTER THAT, THE pieces slid together like they’d been greased. I matched the feather with the picture in my Pocket Apocrypha of Multidimensional Zoology. It only confirmed what I’d already guessed. The feather belonged to a kingfisher.

  An alarm bell was ringing in my head, loud and clear.

  Using the optic sweeper, Deliciosa found microscopic puncture wounds in the ends of Pallas Athene’s fingers. I dusted the floor with ten-dimensional aluminum powder. The powder fanned in a classic interference pattern, pointing right at a loose flag. The stone wasn’t loose in the regular sense—I’d never have spotted it without the powder—but once I zapped it with a Euclidean tuning fork it rattled like a loose tooth.

  “Where do you find room for all this equipment?” said Deliciosa.

  “What can I say?” I said, dropping the tuning fork back in my pocket. “It’s a hell of a coat.”

  I lifted the loose flag and dropped it to one side. It fell hard, breaking in two. The hole in the floor belched out gas and I reeled back, gagging. Arachne coughed. Even Deliciosa put her hand to her nose. I held my breath and peered down the hole.

  A dim green glow lit up a deep vertical shaft. A rusty ladder hung off one side. The rungs were thick with phosphorescent algae—the source of the glow. The shaft stank. At the bottom, something brown moved sluggishly.

  “Looks like your ambrosia went down the drain,” I said.

  What?! Arachne shoved me aside and glared down the shaft. Don’t tell me my precious ambrosia has been dumped into this wretched city’s waste disposal system!

  “If you mean the sewer, you’re right on the button.”

  Then there is no way I’ll ever get it back. It will be... contaminated.

  Arachne circled the sewer shaft, wringing her hands. Her six good legs skittered erratically. Her abdomen pulsated, breath wheezing through its spiracles. All her remaining eyes were bulging. She looked terrified. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  “Keep your panties on,” I said. “There’s still a chance your ambrosia’s safe.”

  What do you mean?

  “Whoever stole your ambrosia, they sent in a cat-burglar. A kingfisher, to be exact. That means it was a professional job—as professional as it gets. Someone wanted the swag intact. Why else go to all that trouble?”

  You know who it is, don’t you?

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Only one way to find out.”

  “What’s so special about kingfishers?” Deliciosa asked.

  92

  AS I LOWERED myself into the sewer shaft, I threw a last look at Arachne. She’d sagged on her six spider legs and let her human shoulders slouch. She looked tired, like an ageing actress after the audience has left the theater.

  I felt Deliciosa’s wings on my face. She was following me down.

  “No reason you should come,” I said. “Like you said: you’re no detective.”

  “Excuse me—who found the feather?”

  “All the same.”

  “I’m coming, like it or not.”

  The shaft was green and gross. The ladder rungs were slippy. The smell was almost unbearable.

  “There’s danger down there,” I said. “More than you know.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “You should be.”

  Deliciosa looked at me hard. “You think it’s all connected, don’t you? The apocalypse, Arachne, even Zephyr’s disappearance?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I can read you, gumshoe.”

  “What I think doesn’t count. All that matters is the truth.”

  “Do you think Zephyr is down there?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you going?”

  “Aren’t you the one talked me into taking this case?”

  “Perhaps I was wrong.”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  “You’d risk your life for a hunch?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time. But I won’t risk yours. Go back.”

  “No.”

  “You could die.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  She glared down at me with her deep angel eyes. The rags of her uniform clung to her ravaged body. I remembered the gossamer gown she’d worn when she’d been alive, remembered the body it had barely covered. Oh, my angel.

  I’d told Deliciosa the truth about acting on a hunch. What I hadn’t told her was that I had more than one. The second hunch was as strong as the first. It told me this would be the last time I stepped out with an angel.

  I hoped it wasn’t true.

  Trouble with truth, it’s never what you expect.

  93

  THE LADDER TOOK us down into a narrow sewer. There was no ledge, so we had to wade. I took off my coat, turned it inside out three times until it was a chemical warfare suit and offered it to Deliciosa, but she said she was okay. Zombies don’t mind bad smells.

  I pulled down my gas mask. We plodded on.

  At each junction we took a left. That southpaw thing again. The tunnels got progressively wider and the river of sludge ran faster. It became hard to stay upright. Eventually we reached a tunnel with stone walkways running along the side. We climbed out of the muck, shook our feet, carried on.

  For a long time the only sound was the slap of the sludge against the sides of the walkways. Then we started to hear something else: a scrabbling sound. The green phosphorescence pickled out darting movements in the vaulted ceiling, sudden shadows lurking round the turns.

  “Rats?” said Deliciosa, grabbing me. Zombies hate rats. Who doesn’t?

  “Not rats,” I said. “Scarabs.”

  Soon the scrabbling was drowned out by a roar. It grew so loud I could hardly think. Rounding a corner, we found ourselves in a vast underground interchange. Faint daylight sliced through grates at least a thousand stories above us. Twenty sewer tunnels met here, all dumping their freight into a huge basin of brown sludge, and in the center was a whirlpool. The sludge spun, slurped, vanished into darkness. It looked like someone was emptying the bathtub of the gods. Extremely dirty gods.

  Scarabs swarmed on to the walkways. They rushed toward us, crossing bridges, clinging to the walls. An avalanche of black polished boulders.

  I felt in my pockets, cursing again that I hadn’t brought a weapon. Beside me, Deliciosa’s wings had started to hum. But the scarabs numbered in the millions. Even she couldn’t handle them all.

  We backed into a corner. I pushed Deliciosa behind me, deluding myself I was in a position to protect a twelve-foot zombie angel with chainsaw wings.

  The lead wave of scarabs reached my boots. I kicked away as many as I could. For every bug I kicked, three more took its place. The scarabs climbed on each other’s backs, constructing a wall around us. Soon we were hemmed in. All I could see was fat beetle bellies, waving legs, glossy eyes. Antennae started running over our bodies. The beetles unzipped my coat and frisked me. They explored inside Deliciosa’s uniform, delving into her loose flesh. She bent at the waist, allowing her spinning wings to roll forward over her head. Their blades were inches from the nearest scarab.

  “Wait a second,” I said.

  She froze. The scarabs continued their investigation briefly, then pulled back. There was a pause. I held my breath. Deliciosa held her wings.

  One scarab was poised right in front of my face. It combed its legs over its eyes, then opened its carapace. Chitin segments rang like a steel band. The scarab behind it took up the rhythm, t
hen the next in line started syncopating, at which point the first one stopped. And so the drumbeat spread outward through the crowd, a Mexican wave of sound.

  “What are they doing?” said Deliciosa.

  The scarabs closest to us began to disperse, scuttling back up the walls and vanishing into cracks in the ceiling. As the drumbeat receded down the sewers, the army of beetles melted away.

  “They’re communicating,” I said.

  “With what?”

  “We’re inside the sewer.”

  “I know that! I asked you who the beetles were talking to.”

  “No—I mean we’re inside the sewer. Inside its mind. These scarabs—they’re like the sewer’s brain cells. When they beat the bongos, it means the sewer’s thinking.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  By now all the scarabs were gone. The drumbeat had melted into the roar of the whirlpool. We stepped away from the wall, took a few hesitant steps down the walkway.

  “Which way do we...?” Deliciosa began.

  There was a flash of blue. Something whizzed past, too fast to be more than a blur. We both knew exactly what it was.

  “There it goes!” Deliciosa shouted, pointing to a square tunnel entrance high above the rest. I looked up in time to see the kingfisher vanish inside. “Should we follow it?”

  Before I could answer, the drumbeat returned.

  A shockwave of rank air exploded from the biggest of the sewer tunnels. Behind it came a scarab tsunami. Their bodies tumbled like lottery balls. They plowed through the sludge, carapaces opening and closing, drumming. When the bugs reached the whirlpool, they fanned round it. The whirlpool inverted and sent a cone of raw sewage hurtling into the air. The cone grew stubby arms, a great dome of a head, something resembling a face.

  “What is it?” said Deliciosa.

  “The sewer uber-mind,” I said. “And it’s kicking up a stink.”

  Glutinous facial features collapsed and reformed continuously as the column of sewage rotated around them. But though the visage changed, the expression remained constant.

  The sewer was furious.

  “This court is in session!” roared the sewer without preamble. Its voice was thick, liquid, hideous. With each word it sprayed us with sewage. I closed up my coat again. “How dost thou plead?”