Broken Quill

by Joe Ducie

  Broken

  Quill

  The Reminiscent Exile: Book Two

  Joe Ducie

  Copyright © 2013 Joe Ducie

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and

  retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  One chapter or ten percent of this book, whichever is greater, may be

  photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any references to real people or real locales are used fictitiously.

  Cedar Sky Publishing was founded in Perth, Western Australia.

  This book also available as paperback.

  Written by Joe Ducie: www.joeducie.net

  Cover artwork by Vincent Chong: www.vincentchong-art.co.uk

  For MUM and DAD

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THE FIRST ACT

  Chapter One

  I Don’t Like Mondays

  Chapter Two

  Cider Friday

  Chapter Three

  First Blood

  Chapter Four

  Ain’t She Peachy Keen

  Chapter Five

  Emissary

  Chapter Six

  Only Road I’ve Ever Been Down

  Chapter Seven

  Downtown Clown

  Chapter Eight

  Spins Madly On

  Chapter Nine

  Surly McSorley

  Chapter Ten

  The Atlas Lexicon

  THE SECOND ACT

  Chapter Eleven

  Dream a Little Dream

  Chapter Twelve

  A Most Peculiar Way

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Nowhere Bar

  Chapter Fourteen

  Meadow Gate

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Reminiscent Exile

  Chapter Sixteen

  Midweek Mishaps

  Chapter Seventeen

  And the World Goes Blind

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part of the Wave

  Chapter Nineteen

  Old London Town

  Chapter Twenty

  Sundown Brother

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Infernal Academy

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sirens of Decay

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A Canvas of Stone

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Age of Judgment Day

  THE THIRD ACT

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  And the Sky Did Fall

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Murder City

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  No More Laughter

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Please, Remember Me

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Scotch o’Clock

  Chapter Thirty

  Baby, I’ve Been Here Before

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I don’t think writing stories ever gets easier, just more complex. To that end, I’d like to acknowledge the following people who helped this story avoid such tangled skipping reels of rhyme.

  To Finola Richardson – for your kind words and watchful eye on these pages. However hard I try to make it happen, you stop Declan from descending too far into drunken debauchery.

  To Andrew Ireland & Pete Sturdy – steak night, gentlemen?

  To Imogen Rice – a splash of color on the early chapters and the whole tale seems brighter.

  To Elisha Rooney – suave sons of bitches aside, I would do well to heed your wonderful words.

  To Michael Dunn – let’s just say it was on purpose.

  To Scott Eadie – enjoy the grind, bro.

  To the good people at Red Adept, for their editing, proofing, and general polishing of this silly old story.

  Broken

  Quill

  The Reminiscent Exile: Book Two

  Joe Ducie

  THE FIRST ACT

  No direction home

  … the world is rudderless.

  ~Alan Moore

  Chapter One

  I Don’t Like Mondays

  “Are you sure you want to see this, son?” Detective Grey asked. He held up a strip of yellow police tape. Flashing blue and red lights played tricks with the shadows beneath the tall trees that lined the street running through the heart of Kings Park.

  I stifled a yawn and nodded. “Your boys pulled me out of a perfectly good drunken stupor at two in the morning and dragged me down here. Let’s be having it, Detective.”

  Grey shrugged and motioned me under the cordon past two uniformed officers standing guard. The grass underfoot was soft and wet, and a low fog hung in pale wisps a few inches above the ground, mixed with the taste of lavender and wildflowers. Kings Park at night was well lit, but that only served to ignite the mist with an eerie glow.

  I followed Grey along a meandering path next to rows of native flora, banksias and bottlebrush, planted as a natural barrier against the steep fall away to our left onto Mounts Bay Road. Built on a ridge a few hundred feet above Perth, Kings Park was the largest inner-city park in the world. The Swan River disappeared into the night far below, bordered by the Kwinana Freeway and a steady stream of headlights, even at this early hour.

  All in all, a very odd spot for a bit of late-night murder.

  Digital camera flashes fought a war with the red and blue emergency lights for the shadows. I was always mindful of the dark and what could be hiding in its inky folds. The police had set up tall halogen lamps along the path, bathing the grass in bright, artificial light. Detective Grey’s shadow cut away from his body behind him and to the right, across the ground.

  I looked at my feet, at something that wasn’t there. It was not something other people generally noticed, but I cast no shadow. I’d traded it for some magic beans and a jar of snake oil some five years ago.

  Past shenanigans...

  Grey stopped me at a desk set up on the path. He made me put on latex gloves and, over my leather shoes, disposable booties.

  “Do not touch anything,” he said.

  Ahead, a group of people were kneeling around what I assumed was a corpse lying under the boughs of a massive, gnarled oak tree. Or from the scant details I’d gleaned on the ride over, what was left of a corpse. The forensic folk were geared out head-to-toe in white bodysuits and facemasks, but one woman stood apart, in just gloves and booties like Grey and myself.

  The senior detective cut a careful path between two sets of small yellow cones—what I assumed was a cleared area, safe to walk.

  “Declan Hale, this is my partner, Detective Annie Brie. She’s in charge of this investigation. Annie, Declan Hale.”

  I met her eyes and felt something wonderful shiver through me—ice trickling down my spine, a touch of ecstasy for the soul—and for a moment was at a loss for words. My Will, a font in my mind that tapped a deep ocean of universal power, surged through my being and reached toward this woman.

  I stifled a gasp and shuddered, putting a tight leash on the power threatening to explode through every pore in my body. I’d only ever felt like this once before—as the Everlasting Oblivion tore my shadow away in Atlantis. The feeling dissipated, and I regained my focus, twice as hungover.

  Brie was a tall woman with a sharp jaw and straight black hair that framed her face. A young face—I’d put her in her late twenties, just a few years older than me. She was Asian but perhaps on only one side of the family. Her skin was pale, and the puffiness around her light green eyes suggested sh
e had been fast asleep not too long ago.

  She offered me her hand. “Nice waistcoat, Declan Hale.”

  We shook. “Thank you, Detective Annie Brie. I think I’m going to like you.”

  “Where are we at, Annie?” Grey asked.

  Brie held my gaze another few moments before turning to her partner. “Forensics confirmed just the one victim, Sam, but given the mess, it was hard to tell. Are we sure he should be seeing this?” She shrugged a thumb my way.

  “It’s got his name written all over it,” Grey muttered. His smile looked skeletal and grim in the artificial light. “Show him.”

  Brie took a gentle hold of my wrist. “Step where I step, Mr. Hale.”

  She led me through a throng of faceless men and women, masked and clinically clean, and to the edge of the pathway that veered around the mighty oak tree. Scrawled in blood and entrails along one of the large concrete slabs was a message.

  :) The game is afoot, Declan Hale. Get it?

  A FOOT! Ha-ha-haar… LONG LIVE THE IMMORTAL KING! :(

  Well, that settled it. This murder was tied to Forget, to the mythical realms of story, possibly to Ascension City itself, and my life as an exiled Knight Infernal. The problem with that, of course, was that it didn’t narrow down the field of possible suspects one bit. No. Instead of one world to hide in, whoever—or whatever—had done this had millions. Next to the message was a human foot, ivory-blue, severed raggedly at the ankle. A sharp shaft of white bone, snapped at the shin, protruded from the break. The game is a foot, indeed.

  I looked away from the message and back at Detective Brie. “That’s my name.”

  “Yes.”

  “I take it I’m the only Declan Hale in Perth, which is why you pulled me out of bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s the rest of the body?”

  Sam Grey clapped me on the shoulder. “Look up, son.”

  I looked up. Various floodlights were positioned under the long, reaching boughs of the oak tree, illuminating the dark canopy. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but when they did, I spotted something gruesome.

  A head, eyes gouged and mouth caught in a final scream, hung pierced through the neck on one of the low-hanging branches.

  “Huh…” I said.

  Now that I saw it, I couldn’t look away. Brutally severed and bloody pieces of a man hung in the tree, as if he had exploded and the many branches had played catch. His torso, bruised and slick with blood, had been forced open and excavated. Whoever this poor bastard had been, someone—something?—had removed his heart.

  The missing heart rang a bell in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t place the chime, and I was being watched far too closely to conduct any Willful forensics.

  “You think I did this?” Nothing human did this.

  The detectives stared at me, faces blank.

  “What?”

  “Have you seen a lot of dead bodies before, Mr. Hale?” Brie asked.

  Did that deserve a lie? What was “a lot”? Crimson fields littered with enough dead that not even fire could cleanse the earth? A forest of bamboo that grew red because of all the blood the ground had absorbed? Oceans of innocents cut down in a war that spanned not only worlds but universes? A war I’d ended at the bloody, genocidal point of a crystal sword. The Roseblade.

  I shrugged. “Declan, please. And one or two. You know, at funerals.”

  Grey grunted and gestured at the remains in the tree. “Only this didn’t seem to bother you very much. Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so calm at a murder scene, especially one this ghastly.”

  “I’m doing my best to ward off a well-earned but inevitable hangover, Detective.” I pressed my fingers against my eyelids. “And trying very hard not to throw up the delicious steak I had at Paddy’s Pub last night, on Sugar Lane near Riverwood Plaza, where I was until closing time at midnight—drinking and not committing murder.”

  Brie jotted all that down in a little blue notebook. “No one’s accusing you of anything, Mr. Hale.” Yet. “We’ll check your alibi, of course, but I guess you know why we called you out here tonight.”

  “You’re the only Declan Hale in town,” Grey said. “And we were worried that this—” he gestured to the mess of blood and guts. “—was perhaps all that was left of you.”

  “You have any enemies, Mr. Hale?” Brie asked.

  Well… “Declan, please. No, not that I know of, Detective. I just run a bookshop and keep to myself, mostly.” An untrue truth. A deceptive truth, Detective.

  “Hmm…” She placed a hand on her hip and offered me half a smile. “You sure? Nothing I should know about? Have you received any threatening letters or text messages recently? Things like that could be related.”

  “Nope.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a battered old smartphone. Sophie had given it to me when she had upgraded to something flashier. “Only had a phone about a month.”

  Brie touched my forearm. I suppressed another shiver. Something about this woman was… troublesome. Images of Clare and, worse, Tal, flashed through my mind. Both women I had lost to the fires of Forget. Same old mistakes, brand new ways. Seconds become aeons. I thought of the Infernal Clock and rubbed at the crescent scar on my palm.

  “Thing is, we don’t often see crimes like this, with messages in blood and all this staging. Sure, they’re everyday in the Hollywood movies and cop shows, but in the real world… rarely, if ever. For the killer to bother, and to name you, suggests a personal stake in the whole affair.”

  “I wish I could help.”

  “Can you?” Grey asked.

  What could I offer? Nothing they’d believe—not without dragging them across universes to Ascension City, perhaps to the heart of the Fae Palace itself, where my brother ruled as king over an army of supremely powerful beings capable of warping and distorting the fabric of reality. No, that would not be helpful.

  “Well, although it’s a play on words given the staging of your victim’s feet, the words in the message are actually referencing a Sherlock Holmes story.” I cleared my throat. “‘Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot.’ It’s a literary reference. Your killer is well read.”

  Again, Brie jotted all this down, and, again, that didn’t serve to narrow the suspect pool one bit. The realm of Forget, entire worlds suspended along the Story Thread as if they were a necklace of fine jewels, existed for the well-read. “Anything else?”

  Something was nagging at me in the back of my mind. That bell was still ringing, but I couldn’t quite place the sound. A sound that made me think of my old grandfather, locked away on Starhold. This was a message for me, from someone or something in Forget, and I was missing the point; of that I was sure. Perhaps it was the storm clouds on the horizon, the hangover, clouding my judgment.

  I looked up again into the spooky tree. “Where are the… innards?”

  “I’m sorry?” Brie said.

  “The man’s organs are missing, as far as I can tell. His heart, at the very least.”

  “We’re searching for them,” Grey said. “But it looks as if whoever did this either killed him somewhere else and left some parts behind or killed him here and took some parts with him.” He paused and stroked his chin. “The blood guys believe, given the spatter patterns on the tree and grass, that he was… pulled apart here. The killer took the heart, Mr. Hale. God knows why.”

  “Hmm… I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.” And my stomach was doing back flips. Curse that delicious scotch. “Do you think I could head home now before I mess up your crime scene?”

  That was a poor joke, and no one laughed.

  “Come with me,” Grey said. “We’ll need you to sign a statement before you leave.”

  “Okay.” I stepped away from the bloody message and gave Brie a parting wave. “It was a pleasure, Detective Annie Brie.”

  She tilted her head. “I’ll be seeing you again, I’m sure.”

  I tried for a smile that fell somewhere between tired and
lonely. “Lucky me.”

  Chapter Two

  Cider Friday

  Before we left the park, I was dragged into a command tent to give a signed statement about my whereabouts the previous evening as well as what I’d said and done at the crime scene. It was all very proper and by the book. As dawn crept over the horizon, Grey called it a night and pulled me along with him. I sat dozing in the passenger seat of his car as he drove me home just after five in the morning.

  He didn’t speak on the way, and I didn’t invite conversation. Falling in and out of sleep, I dreamt of pink fire and crimson war. Aeons become seconds... The old motto of the Knights Infernal wouldn’t stop rattling around my head.

  Grey dropped me off out the back of Riverwood Plaza, a tiny, quiet cobblestoned street home to a slew of small businesses, including my bookshop, which I lived in and above. A haven of sorts for those of us cast into exile and down on our miserable luck.

  “We’ll most likely be in touch, Mr. Hale.” Grey offered his hand. His grip was firm, calloused. “We’ve got your number.”

  “Yeah. Let me know if anyone leaves me another love note.”

  Grey considered, then nodded. “You think there’ll be another murder?”

  I got out of his car and stretched. No folk about this early in the morning, just the cool breeze and a scent of wet road after rain. “Let’s hope not. Farewell, Detective.”

  He drove away and I ambled around the outskirts of Riverwood Plaza, past the recently repaired fountain—which a Voidling had blown up not too long ago—and let myself into my shop.