Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  “Somebody just blew up the jail. I thought you were still in it. How did you get out?”

  “Early release for good behavior.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Simms let me out.”

  “I liked your first answer better.”

  I gestured over to the charcoal suit that was screaming at Simms.

  “Why are the Niles Company goons coming to you for help? Don’t they have enough weapons of their own?”

  “What weapons?”

  “The factory up in Brisak Reserve is full of killing machines. Hundreds of them.”

  “That must be why Tippity targeted it first. The whole building is covered with ice.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  That would even the odds. Some of the Niles men were carrying pistols already, but nobody knew how many followers Hendricks had been able to recruit.

  “What else have they done?” I asked.

  “Destroyed a few buildings. Killed a couple of workers. Not sure what their plan is, other than tearing things apart.”

  “From the way Hendricks was talking, that is their plan.” I got a strange look from Richie and realized that it was time to fill him in on a few things. “I’ll try and tell it to you quick.”

  We got out of earshot of the other cops and I did my best to cram as much information into a couple of minutes. Richie and I had met when we were Shepherds together. He knew Hendricks. Knew who he used to be, anyway. But he’d been in Sunder since the Coda and needed less convincing than me to decide which side to fight on.

  “But even if he wants to, how can he destroy a whole city?” he asked. “You said yourself that those Faery spells don’t pack enough punch.”

  “I don’t know. I just know he’s going to try.”

  Simms broke away from the suit and came over to us.

  “Sounds like the fight is moving downtown.”

  “To the stadium,” I said.

  “How did you know that?”

  “Because Niles has a huge operation there. He’s taken over the tunnels that lead down to the fire pits.”

  “Why?”

  It still sounded ridiculous.

  “Because the fires are still there. Always have been. Niles wants to claim the energy and sell it back to us. Tippity will do whatever he can to stop him, including bringing the whole city to its knees.” I saw the questions line up inside their minds but we didn’t have time for me to answer them. “If they’ve taken the fight to the stadium, we need to get down there. But we need a way to stand up against Tippity’s magic, and police batons aren’t going to cut it.”

  “We don’t have anything else,” said Richie.

  “Actually, you do. Where did you put all the stuff you confiscated from Tippity’s pharmacy?”

  Simms looked dubious as hell. I didn’t blame her.

  “Out back.”

  “Take me there now.”

  The evidence room was an outlaw’s dream. Row upon row of illegal contraband: barbed crossbow bolts and poison arrows, drawers full of blades and blackjacks, a cupboard full of counterfeit currency and boxes of secret documents just begging to be used as blackmail.

  Tippity’s possessions had been pushed into the corner between a portable cannon and an anatomically correct Centaur sex doll. Simms took the lids off three wooden crates.

  “This is most of it. The Fae bodies went to the morgue and some of the more potent medicines went… missing on the way back.”

  Inside, there were a few familiar objects: glass vessels of unlabeled liquid, petri dishes, soaps, eye-droppers and gloves.

  “Oh, the… things aren’t here either,” said Simms. “The orbs from inside the Fae. Like that one you gave me. We buried them. I’m sorry, you said to look after them and—”

  “No. That’s good. I wouldn’t use them anyway.”

  I moved through the boxes till I found what I was looking for: a sturdy container full of tiny glass balls, each of them filled with a dash of pink liquid.

  I held one of them up to the light.

  “Isn’t that just acid?” asked Richie. “I thought you needed something from the Fae to make it work.”

  “Yeah, but I have something else.” I searched through the crates but I couldn’t find any of Tippity’s little pouches. “We just need to try a little experiment.”

  “An experiment? Fetch, I’ve got officers in real danger out there right now. I don’t have time to be messing around.”

  I kicked off my boot and took off my sock. After my unwashed days in prison, it even smelled bad to me. I couldn’t imagine how it must have smelled to Richie and Simms. They stepped back as I dropped the orb inside.

  Then I took the leather bundle out of my pocket, laid it on the floor and unfurled it. The dull shards of Unicorn glass didn’t look too impressive.

  “What’s that?” asked Richie.

  I picked up a piece the size of a pea. It seemed too small, so I took one that was the size and shape of an almond, slid it into the sock beside the orb and stood up with the sock dangling from my clenched fist.

  “Shouldn’t we go outside?” said Richie.

  “We don’t have time for this!” growled Simms.

  That sounded like my cue.

  I hurled the sweaty sock at a couple of suits of armor hanging on the far wall. The sock hit the metal with a soft and unimpressive sound, and fell to the floor. As it hit the ground, I heard the orb smash.

  Nothing.

  “Shit.” I kicked the crate. “I thought—”

  WHOOOMP.

  My first thought was that Richie had punched me. It was like he’d planted one of his fat fists in the center of my chest. But I wasn’t the only one falling backwards. All three of us went flying into the air as the sock transformed into a pulsing purple void. Savage wind blew back my hair and burned my eyes. My ears crackled like full of foam. Every part of my body was vibrating, but it wasn’t painful. It was strangely pleasant. Like being underwater without worrying about ever being able to breathe.

  I couldn’t stand up. I couldn’t move at all. Gravity pushed me down and the ground felt like it was gripping my back. My chest, for the first time in years, didn’t hurt at all. I was happy to lie there, perfectly still, for as long as anyone would let me.

  Did seconds go by, or minutes? It didn’t matter. At some point, the void faded away and I rolled my head to see Simms and Richie blinking themselves out of a similar daze.

  Simms took a nice, deep breath and found her voice first.

  “Richie, get as many pairs of socks as you can find.”

  79

  Richie was in no state to gather the supplies himself, but the explosion alerted a whole bunch of corporals who came in and took orders from the Reptilian detective who was lying on the floor. They helped Simms, Richie and me into the mess hall and sat us down on an old couch while we tried to wipe the dozy smiles off our faces. It was like I’d chewed a whole pack of Clayfields after a pint of night-time tea and a good lay.

  This wasn’t like being hit by one of Tippity’s spells, where some essential element smacked you in the face. This was like something drained all the effort out of your body and turned you into a cloud.

  I rolled my head to the side. Richie was grinning like a circus clown.

  “Did you say Unicorn?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Found one on the road from Aaron Valley.”

  “And you cracked open its head like one of those Faeries?”

  “No. This is… different.”

  “How?”

  Luckily, Simms jumped in to save me. Her sibilance was even more pronounced than usual.

  “The story goes that when the horses ate the apples from the sacred tree, a piece of pure magic attached itself to their minds. This isn’t like the Faeries at all. This is more like unlocking a piece of the river itself.”

  Richie rolled his head back and his eyes went wide.

  “Shiiiiiit,” he said. And we all laughed.

>   It took twenty minutes for the effect to wear off. Then, slowly, that uncomfortable pain in my chest came back and we remembered that there was a war to fight. We helped each other to our feet, filled ourselves with bad cop-shop coffee, and soon the adrenaline was back in our blood.

  It was a still, windless night and I was in an army again. Last time, it had been a band of Humans heading off to screw up the world. Now, I was side by side with the Sunder City police force: Ogres, Dwarves, Gnomes, Reptilia and more, all with colorful socks dangling from our fingers. Each sock contained one of Tippity’s orbs of acid beside a sprinkling of Unicorn horn. We tested the amount once more before we left, and decided that a pinch was plenty.

  I had the machine against my ribs, and my knife and knuckles in my hands. Simms had a crossbow. Richie had his fists. The civilians were all inside, hiding away while we marched south towards the sound of explosions.

  We passed an area that was on fire. The body of a Gnome dressed in Niles Company uniform was smoldering on the road.

  “Put him out,” Simms said to a young cop who was relieved to have a reason to stay behind. The next anomaly in our path was a Human policeman, running towards us. He wasn’t getting far, though. His whole body was surrounded by a layer of ice that was thickest at the bottom, like it had grown up from the earth, then blossomed out of his skin in sharp spikes. Another couple of cops peeled off from the pack to see what they could do to help.

  The electric lights of the stadium came into view and the battlefield opened up before us. Workers were scrambling for cover behind machinery and piles of dirt, as a recently conjured fireball ripped through a pallet of wooden planks.

  “Take down any agitators fighting on Tippity’s side,” ordered Simms. “That’s anyone using magic that isn’t one of us. The Niles Company isn’t outside the law, either. Keep your eyes open. Remember everything that happens. There will be arrests and there will be a reckoning. We are not losing the city tonight!”

  We fanned out around the stadium that wasn’t really a stadium anymore. The bleachers were still there but the rest of the field had become a construction site. Mostly, it was messy piles of wood and mounds of excavated dirt, but dotted throughout the grounds were illuminated tents. The tents were built over holes in the earth that must have been the tunnels that led down below.

  NC employees stood around those tents en masse. So, that was the game. Hendricks and his troops were trying to get under the city while those working for Niles were trying to keep them out. Our job was to subdue the lot of them.

  I moved to the right with a half-dozen of Sunder City’s finest. A few meters ahead, two Mages crossed our path.

  The straw-haired cop at my side looked up at me like I was supposed to be giving him orders.

  I nodded emphatically (which was all that I could think to do) and the cop took it as encouragement.

  “Stop right there!” he yelled. “This is the police!”

  The Mages turned, saw our squad, and something close to glee ran up their faces. They were excited to have a chance to put their new skill to use. They reached into their cloaks.

  “I said stop!”

  One of the other cops wasn’t going to wait. She pelted her orange sock and it hit a Mage in the chest. The orb cracked on impact and before it hit the ground, the whole thing exploded into purple light. Well, not light, exactly. The opposite of light, but the opposite of dark too. And not really purple either. There was the idea of purple in there somewhere, but also yellow and fear and starshine. But not real stars, more like the stars you see when you get hit on the head.

  One of the Mages hit the ground with an audible thump. The other was flung into the side of a big wooden crate. He stuck there, like he was covered with glue. They were both still alive, just pressed down with magical gravity and lulled into a non-violent state.

  Carefully, the cops crept forward and put the Mages in cuffs while I kept moving. There were flashes of colored light shooting up in the air, and explosions rattling all around. I kept myself up against pallets of bricks and timber, catching glimpses of the agitators that moved around us. They weren’t the only ones. Niles Company workers were ready to defend their new workplace with metal bars, shovels, and whatever offcuts could be turned into weapons.

  I snuck under the bleachers and looked for an opening that would lead me down. Peering out from between the seats, I watched a clash between workers, cops and rebels that was too messy to tell who was winning. I moved past, hoping to skirt around the minions and find the leaders instead.

  Footsteps. I heard them just in time. When I spun around, a Dwarf with a clawed hammer was swinging at my head. All the cops were in uniform but I was back in my modified Opus coat. To him, I must have looked like another one of Eliah’s mad followers. I raised my hands and backed away, hoping I’d have a chance to explain that I wasn’t here to hurt him. Then there was a flash of fire from a battle beside us, and the light caught both our faces.

  “You fookin’ arse!”

  It was the steel worker Dwarf from The Ditch. Clangor. The one who took it real personal that I’d got him kicked out of his riverside home. It no longer mattered that I didn’t want to fight him, because he’d been waiting for an excuse to hurt me for months.

  “I knew you were an evil piece of shite.”

  He kept swinging and I stepped back, protecting the sock in my hand even more than my body.

  I’d fought plenty of people in my time, but they were mostly folks my size. It’s not easy to avoid attacks when they all come so low. The hammer connected with my hip and I stumbled back into more of those training dummies, like the one that I’d used to test the machine. I held one of the sacks between me and my attacker and the weapon lodged in the stuffing. I pushed the dummy into the Dwarf’s face so that he lost his balance and landed on his back, then I kicked the hammer from his hand and pinned him with my knee.

  “You arse!”

  He didn’t have a chance of moving me but I felt no satisfaction in winning the fight. His pride was so hurt, I felt more like giving him a hug than gloating. But there was no time for that. I jumped up and kept moving, knowing that his little legs were too slow to follow me.

  When I came out into the open, the first thing I saw was Richie dragging a Mage through the wet grass, struggling to get the cuffs on him. It was good to see Kites in action again. The brute had been behind a desk too long. The mage was swatting at him but I could tell the old Shepherd was enjoying himself.

  Behind him, a figure stepped out from the shadows. He’d cleaned himself up, but you’d need a lifetime of scrubbing to wipe that smug look off his face. Rick Tippity threw one of his pouches in a long arc, right to where Richie was standing. I ran towards it. Desperately. Hopelessly.

  “Richie! Look out!”

  He turned to face me, and the incoming projectile shattered on the ground behind him. Fire burst out of it, but not like the last time. This wasn’t the little eyebrow-burning flash I’d seen before. It was a cyclone: an unruly, twisting spiral with flames that fanned out in all directions and burned up into the night sky.

  Richie was blown towards me and landed face down in the dirt. The flames kept roaring behind him, shooting out from the place where the pouch had landed. It was so fierce that I couldn’t run to him without stepping into the heat myself.

  Richie crawled forward. His uniform was burning.

  As soon as he was far enough from the source, I ran in and grabbed his arms. Flames licked my face, but only in flashes. The spell was finally subsiding. I dragged Richie back behind a parked truck and used a piece of canvas to pat out the embers on his shoulders and ass. Parts of his clothes had burned right through to the skin but we wouldn’t know how bad it was till he got to the medical center.

  “I thought you said it was just light and color,” he grunted.

  “Tippity must have updated his recipe.”

  I wasn’t sure how. He said that different Fae would produce different levels of power,
but this seemed like something else entirely.

  I looked back at the smoldering patch of burned grass, trying to guess how Tippity had upgraded his power, when I noticed that all the canvas was flapping in the wind. There hadn’t even been a breeze a minute ago but now it was blowing a gale. I took a deep breath, and the smoggy Sunder air now smelled fresh as a mountaintop.

  Air Sprite. There hadn’t just been a fire orb inside that pouch: an Air Sprite’s essence had been put in there too. With the magical wind fanning the flames, Tippity had significantly upgraded his firepower. I wondered if that was his idea or Eliah’s.

  “Stay here,” I told Richie. “I’ll take care of the Warlock and we’ll get you some help.”

  He grunted. “Shut your face, Fetch. I’m not done yet.”

  “Half your ass is hanging out!”

  “That’s only a problem for whoever’s behind me.”

  We jumped up. Richie chased after another mad Dwarf and I ran towards the spot where Tippity had poked his head.

  I came around the corner and found him facing the other way, approaching a couple of young cops who were timidly telling him to stand down. But he was high on power and had a dozen leather pouches hanging from his belt.

  I wrapped the brass around my knuckles. The ground was damp. He wouldn’t hear me. Just a couple of ribs and he’d be done for. Tippity loved to dish it out but he still hadn’t learned to take the pain.

  I cocked my elbow, lowered my stance, and was breaking into a sprint when the world went white.

  CRACK!

  Thunder rolled out around me. I was crackling. I couldn’t unclench my fist or my teeth. My eyes were closed but everything was so bright. Red flashes lit up the capillaries in my eyelids. I felt the ground hit my knees and then my shoulder, and then the side of my head.

  A Lightning Sprite. Tippity had diversified. Another rare creature gone to nothing just so he could feel a little magic again.

  But Tippity hadn’t made that attack. Someone else had been behind me. Someone who was laughing up a storm as mighty as the spell they’d just thrown at my back.