by Norris Black
That's when it hit me.
To be more accurate, that's when he hit me.
The only warning was the movement of a shadow where I swear no shadow existed moments before. A face glided out of the darkness behind me and our eyes met in the mirror. Those eyes stared out of a hard, angular face. Sharp, like the edge of a blade and those eyes, they were the unmistakable eyes of a murderer.
There was no time to react. A flash of metal was followed by a sudden roaring in my head. I tried to lift my arms as the floor rushed up to meet me, but they didn’t appear to be on speaking terms with my brain anymore. I heard voices, but the words were lost, drowned out by the rushing sound in my ears.
Then darkness was all I knew.
Chapter 2
Getting knocked out is a difficult thing to process. When it happens, the lights go out and the world moves on without you. Waking up afterwards is like swimming through mud towards a murky light while the world's worst jazz band sets up a jam session inside your skull. When you finally pry your eyes open, you get a solid ten seconds of pure confusion while your brain sorts through the scattered puzzle pieces of your psyche. This time, when the puzzle came together, I was not at all happy with the picture it left me.
The first piece was the realization the side of my head was being pressed into a polished wooden tabletop. The second piece was the hard, circular object planted against my temple holding me there. Personal experience told me it could only be the business end of an exceptionally large gun. The third and perhaps most unsettling, was the man sitting across from me.
He was spare, as if all the fat had been boiled away, leaving nothing but bone and gristle. Despite that leanness he radiated a palpable strength, evident even from my sideways viewpoint. He looked to be on the far side of middle age, salt-and-pepper hair worn short and slicked back with a matching trimmed beard. An immaculately tailored black suit hung tight to his narrow frame and expensive looking leather gloves covered his hands where they rested on the table in front of him. On his face were a mirrored set of crow tattoos curled around sharp cheekbones, beaks open as if to peck at his eyes. It was these eyes that held my attention. Luminous—one silver and one gold—they pinned me to the tabletop as surely as the gun did.
"Are you Gideon Brown?" he asked. His voice sounded tortured, like the words had to clamber up a hill of razor blades before escaping his mouth. I had a sudden urge to offer him a glass of water.
"Get fucked," was what I said instead.
I can be an irritable person at the best of times and getting smacked in the back of the head before breakfast tends to turn that particular trait up to eleven. I should've been scared for my life right then, but any fear was drowned out by anger. My snarky response was met with silence and I wondered if I would even feel the bullet sure to pass through my brain any moment now.
To my shock, and maybe a little dismay—the knock on the noggin had done nothing for the headache that had been violating my precious gray matter all morning—there was no deafening bang, no muzzle flash, and no wet splattery end to my misery.
What there was, was laughter.
My crow-faced abductor threw back his head and let out a long, dry, raspy laugh. "I'll take that as a yes," he said as he wiped tears from the corners of his colorful eyes. "Let him up."
The pressure pinning me to the tabletop disappeared.
I lifted my aching head and checked my surroundings, taking stock of my current predicament. The man I saw in the mirror right before I went night night was holstering a pistol big enough to count as a tiny cannon. Before the gun disappeared into the holster, I noted intricate designs scribed all along the barrel's considerable length. The polished wooden grip had a small clump of what suspiciously looked like blood and hair clinging to the base of it.
The gunman was tall and thin, wearing a tight-fitting sleeveless leather jacket leaving his long arms bare. Sigil tattoos snaked up both arms, covering much of the exposed dark skin in black ink. A set of long black braids dangled down his chest, nearly reaching the brown leather gun belt encircling his hips. Gunwytch. Judging from the heat I felt radiating from whatever daemon he had bound to that holstered sidearm of his, a potent one.
The laughter trailed off, and I was pinned in place again by those mismatched eyes. "I have a job for you."
"Funny, most prospective clients introduce themselves with a handshake and a name. I think knocking someone unconscious and then holding a gun to their head has to be some kind of breach of etiquette."
"I apologize for Mr. Dancer's enthusiasm. He missed breakfast this morning and that always puts him in a foul mood... fouler mood," he amended. "As for a name, you can call me Murder Rowe."
Explosive laughter filled the bar for a second time that morning, this time from me.
"Murder.... Rowe...?" I gasped between peals of laughter. "Was... Killy McKillerface already... taken?"
My head slammed into the table and the world went black for a moment. The touch of cold metal behind my left ear and the tell-tale sound of a thumb-sized revolver hammer being pulled back brought me back to my current, perilous, situation.
A look of annoyance crossed Rowe's face, though I couldn't tell if it was directed at me or his pet gunwych. He waved one slim, almost delicate, hand and the gun was again taken away from my head. "If you're quite done, there is a business matter to discuss."
With a clunk a clear bottle filled with liquid a deep gold was set on the table, followed by a pair of thick-bottomed glasses. I straightened up, rubbing my stinging face as Rowe poured an inch of the liquid into each glass and slid one across to me before raising the other to his lips. My throat suddenly felt dry.
I slugged the drink back, setting the glass down and motioning for a refill. "There's nothing to discuss. Firstly, I'm retired. And secondly, even if I wasn't, I expect I don't do the kind of work you're looking for. Let's be honest, one look at you is enough to tell me whatever you've got going on is likely to put me on the wrong end of a Seraph's sword. And thirdly, I don't like your face."
Rowe spread his hands and smiled in what was likely intended to be a reassuring way but looked more like a predator baring its teeth. "Retired? No one ever really retires. We both know that. And when it comes to the Seraph, I assure you there is no cause for concern. I promise what I'm asking is in no way illegal. I simply need you to take a look at something and give me your professional opinion. As for my face? Well, we all have our crosses to bear."
I frowned at my still empty glass, edging it forwards a few more inches across towards Rowe. "What do you need me for? You apparently have Mr. Dancer here at your beck and call. Loving the cute names by the way. I can only assume the one-eared mountain of scar tissue I passed on my way in is one of yours too. What's his name, Lucky?"
"Todd."
"Well, that's a bit of a letdown. Regardless, the point is, what possible need do you have for a broken-down retired dirt digger like me?"
That predator smile made another appearance. "Trust me, this job has your name written all over it."
It was obvious he wasn't going to give up easily, and he was most certainly not telling me everything. His 'cat that ate the canary' smile had all my alarm bells ringing. My father used to say, 'if something can't be avoided tackle it head-on and stab it right in the mouth'. I suppose there's a reason he spent the last years of his life rotting in a Seraph cell. Had to admit though, apart from the mouth-stabbing bit, it was sound advice. The best course of action was to play along until I knew the full game. Then there would be some score settling to do. "What's the job?"
Rowe poured me another drink and slid the glass across to my eager hands. "I own, let's call it, an 'evening entertainment establishment' in the fourth ward, near the boundary of the Battery. Last night this establishment was attacked."
I smacked my lips with a contented sigh. "You want me to figure out which rival hit your club? That's it?"
"I said attacked, not hit. This was not the result of some petty
turf war. There were close to a hundred people in the club last night. Not a single one made it out of the building alive. Not one."
"If some Twist crawled out of the Battery and made a meal of your clientele, that's a matter to take up with the Seraph. Though I can imagine why you're not in a rush for that particular chat. Either way, I don't see how I can help.”
"This wasn't a Twist. No, this was something else altogether." He considered his next words before speaking. "There are some other... peculiarities, but I think it best you see those for yourself. Mr. Dancer can drive you."
"Fine," I said, massaging the growing lump on the back of my head. "But when this is all said and done you and I are going to have some words about proper manners. But first, can I at least get some gods' damned breakfast?"
If I had known what was waiting for me at the night club, I would’ve let Dancer put that bullet in me after all.
Chapter 3
A monster walked down Barnaby Street. Even in Crash City it was a curious sight to behold. What made it curious was not the giant gnarled tree trunk of a right arm it drug on the ground behind it, spiked metal plates embedded along its length digging deep furrows into the black asphalt. It wasn't the torn patchwork cloak hanging from one shoulder, made from dozens of flayed faces, expressions frozen in the terror of their prior owners' last moments. It wasn't the giant cloven hooves cracking the ground, each step accompanied by the sound of booming thunder. It wasn't even the tiny white wings, ragged and filthy, nestled between massive bone-armored shoulder blades; a size of wing that was more in place on a pigeon than this infernal behemoth. What was most curious was none of these things, though they were all curious enough to be sure. No, what made it a truly curious sight was the tiny, thin left arm, incongruously holding a small white polystyrene cup filled with what appeared to be hot coffee. As it walked, every ponderous step shaking parked cars and rattling nearby windows, it would on occasion stop to take a tiny sip, making a face as the steaming brew scalded its lips.
The Twist flowed past the side window as Dancer calmly steered the limo wide, staying well out of reach of that massive armored limb, before hanging a left and pulling up in front of the club.
A howling rang out in the distance, slowly but steadily growing louder as the beast turned a corner and disappeared from sight. The Seraph were on their way to deal with the intruder from the Battery.
We were in what was once the heart of Crash City. In my youth it was a veritable riot of sights and sounds, vendors hawking their wares from storefronts while street musicians plied their trade for the odd thrown coin from generous pedestrians. It had been a swirl of activity during the day and twice that after the sun went down. But since Godfall that heart had become diseased. It sat too close to the Battery you see. As more and more twisted abominations leaked out, the more unstable the area became. Over time, the Seraph hemmed in most of the creatures that bred like rabbits in the grounds surrounding where the corpse of the Last God lay. They built outposts, spaced out along a great barricade that had been erected to keep the Battery cordoned off from the rest of the city. By then the damage had been done. Those with the means to escape to the safety of the outer ring had done so, while those left behind in the Nine Wards survived as they could—caught between the iron rule of the Seraph and the capriciousness of the Wardlords with their personal armies of gangers and mercenaries.
These streets, once teeming with people, now lay mostly deserted. In my mind I could still picture what it had looked like, but it was now nothing more than the ghosts of days long gone.
This was a place where history had lived, and then died.
The booming footsteps (hoofsteps?) became fainter and the howling grew louder. It wouldn't be long before the two met and all I could do was be thankful to not be caught in the middle of it.
I gave myself a shake to break free from my maudlin thoughts and studied the building in front of me. Like everything else around here, it had seen better days. In its prime it would have been a sight to behold. Traces of its former beauty could still be seen in its soaring spires, arched windows and menacing gargoyles perched on every corner. It was nothing more than an echo, however. Gaping holes in the spires gave home to bats and pigeons, among darker things. The multi-colored glass of the arched windows had been long smashed out, and now resembled the vacant eye sockets of some vast giant. Even the few elaborate gargoyles remaining were broken and dirty things. The entire building was nothing but a skeleton of its past glory, hollowed out and picked clean by the twin vultures of time and neglect.
Only a single row of basement windows remained intact. Metal bars, thick with rust, covered them. No lights shone from with. Closer inspection revealed someone had blacked out all the windows with paint. Concrete steps, worn from decades of foot traffic, led down to a heavy wooden door with the words The Underground burned into it.
"Well, that's original," I said, not bothering to mask the sarcasm in my voice. "Though with a name like Murder Rowe it's pretty obvious your boss isn't much for subtlety."
That earned me a dark scowl from Dancer as his hand stroked the hilt of his pistol.
I wasn't exactly making any friends here, but considering he'd already hit me over the head once, and held a gun to my head twice, I'm certain that particular ship had already sailed. With a shrug I followed him down the steps and into a nightmare.
I've seen more than anyone's fair share of dead bodies in my time, even created a few of them. Brutality and I had been on speaking terms for most of my life, but what greeted me when I stepped through the Underground's front door is something that will haunt me the rest of my days.
Now, I said bodies, but that wasn't technically correct. What I saw could not properly be classified as bodies. Bits would be a more accurate description. Bloody little bits coating the floor, the bar, the tables, the dance floor and, as I found when I made the woefully regrettable decision to glance up, were even stuck to the ceiling.
Dotted throughout the room were torsos, stripped of limbs but with heads still attached. They stuck out of the sea of blood, guts, and entrails like macabre buoys. The metallic stink of spilled blood and offal crawled into my nostrils and it took all my willpower not to empty my stomach of what little it contained.
I mean, I'd hate to make a mess.
We were greeted by a half dozen men of the stereotypical hired goon variety clustered in a tight knot inside the entrance. You know the type. All big, muscly and menacing, wearing black suits and carrying an assortment of handguns and shotguns. It was becoming increasingly clear originality was not in this outfit's wheelhouse.
"So, is there some kind of buy five, get the sixth one free deal with you guys or something?"
They ignored me.
"Find the lights," said the head goon in charge. I assumed he was the head goon in charge not because he was a little bigger and a little more muscly than his comrades, though he was, and not because his black suit appeared to be made of higher quality material, though it did, it was mostly because he was the one who gave the order.
I'm a detective, you see.
One of the sub-goons wandered off into a side room to presumably find a light switch, though I couldn't imagine why anyone would want a better view of this scene.
A muffled curse and a click later and my suspicions were confirmed. Illumination definitely made everything worse, including my headache.
Dancer's voice snagged my attention. It's the first time he'd spoken a single word since I met him, unless you count angry grunts as speech.
"Look." he said in a clipped accent, gesturing out towards the grisly display.
"It's a fucking slaughterhouse. What the hells am I supposed to be looking at."
He glared at me with those murderer's eyes, hard and angry. He gestured again impatiently. "Look."
I shot him a glare of my own, but my mind had already started processing the scene, mentally tagging and filing as my eyes darted around the room. Old habits are like falling o
ff a bike. Or something. Cut me some slack, my head was killing me.
"It's not random at all," I murmured as I gingerly made my way around the room, picking a path as best I could. I really could've done without the squelching sound accompanying every step. I had thought of it as a sea of blood when first glimpsed in the gloom of the unlit basement, and I was right, but there was more to it. In that sea of blood were islands of meat.
Limbs had been clustered together, radiating outwards in a circle, fingers and heels pointing away from the center. Where the limbs met, sat the torsos I had noted earlier, their screaming faces a mute witness to whatever atrocity had happened here. They reminded me of obscene pale spiders resting atop crimson-streaked islands of human remains. Pinching my nose shut from the eye-watering stench, I wiped away blood from where a long slender arm met the rib cage of what had once been a morbidly obese man to reveal they had been sewn together with crude, thick stitches. My stomach lurched and I narrowly managed to avoid decorating the corpse's bloated gut with my hastily eaten breakfast. I quickly moved on.
Halfway across the room I realized there was something scrawled on the back wall in tall, dark letters.
"Fuck me," I whispered.
The words, GIDEON BROWN were written in what appeared to be dried blood, a severed arm laying at the base of the wall likely the grisly brush used to create this highly unwelcome mural.
"That is why you are here," said Dancer, right in my ear.
I didn't actually jump out of my skin, but it was a close thing.
"You keep that up and I'm going to staple a bell to your throat." I growled. I had been so engrossed with my gruesome discovery he had managed to come up on me unheard. Not a healthy habit to get into, especially with someone so obviously dangerous as the gunwych. I started to say more, but my ears had picked up a strange noise. It was a dry, raspy sound, like hundreds of sheets of parchment being dragged across rough concrete.