by Joe Ducie
I ducked my head back under cover just as another shot pinged off the metal rim of the table and ricocheted into the wall. Chunks of red brick stung my cheek.
“Stay down!” Brie ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.” I finished the bottle of cider in one long slug and noticed the Polaroid picture of the detective and I had fluttered to the floor by my knee. I picked it up and shoved it into my pocket.
“Declan!” Sophie called from inside. “Shield’s up. You can make a run for it now!”
“Grand. Come along, Detective.”
I stood up and saw a strange thing. The air shimmered across the center of the courtyard. Sophie’s shield was near-invisible, which was for the best, as I could only explain so much so quickly, and Brie was going to have a hard enough time believing me innocent of anything after all this.
“Are you mad? Get down!” She grabbed at my arm and pulled me a staggering step to the side. She was surprisingly strong.
Another shot cracked through the air and hit Sophie’s shield. Her Will held strong, and a dozen concentric ripples spread out from the impact, shining ever-so-briefly silver in midair. A high-caliber pebble, traveling at the speed of sound, cast on still waters.
I turned my arm in Brie’s hand and grasped her forearm. She was strong, but I was stronger. I pulled her inside and out of any and all lines of sight.
Inside the bar most of the patrons were making a quick and mad exit out the rear door on the other side of the building. Sophie kneeled next to the pool table, her hand pressed against the beer-soaked green carpet. A faint, luminescent glow spread between her fingers.
“Ethan?” I asked.
“He went out the front,” Sophie said, maintaining her shield to protect those still out in the courtyard. “If I know him, he’s circling round the back of the lake to find this bastard.”
To hear Sophie curse was rare. I offered her a crooked smile. “Better get after him then.”
“Yes, please. Don’t let him die.”
“Hold on a minute—” Brie began, reaching for my arm again.
I stepped back and turned to run.
“Hale, stop!”
Her gun came up, but I didn’t believe for a second that she would shoot me in the back. I set off at a quick jog out the front of the pub, darting past the pizza shop and a hairdresser’s and along the outer rim of buildings that led down to the lake.
The tick-tick of flat heels clipped the path behind me. Annie Brie was keeping me in her sights.
A heavy crowd moved around the lake. Some of the people were running from the tavern while others were just looking around curiously—they knew something was wrong, that something in the air felt off, but were oblivious to the danger. A crowd was good. I could get lost in a crowd.
Brie caught up with me—she was in a lot better shape and a lot less hung-over—and cast a quick, worried glance in my direction.
“Shooter has to be in this building,” I said, pointing at the one I’d picked out at the tavern directly across the small lake. We were about fifty meters away and closing. “If he hasn’t already fled, then he’d have to come down through the interior, don’t you think? There are no adjoining buildings, and I can’t see external access.”
“Who are you?” Brie asked. She had holstered her weapon, which was smart—for now. “Tell me again how you manage a small bookshop.”
“Later. Let’s go bag ourselves a perp.”
“You know the police don’t actually say that,” she said between steady, deep breaths.
“No? Fuckin’ Hollywood.”
Chapter Three
First Blood
Brie and I ran up the steps of Engineering Building 23, according to the frosted letters on the double glass doors. We’d outpaced the crowds around the lake, and things were quiet this side of the university.
A few people stood on the steps, shielding their eyes against the sun and staring at the tavern. Of Ethan there was no sign, but this building had the right feel to it. The man who had shot me was here—I knew it. Call that knowing a sixth sense, a tingle of Will, born through years of war and brutal training at the Infernal Academy.
Trying to kill me from a distance like that…. Well, it was smart, I guess. I had a helluva track record for surviving close encounters with killers—save for one small blemish in the heart of Atlantis three months ago. If he was a hired gun, a normal human with no ties to Forget, then he would have to escape the old fashioned way.
But if he was Willful, which was actually much more likely given that he was targeting me, then he may have already escaped. A Knight or a Renegade could have used any novel of the Story Thread to slip out of this world and into another. The shooter could have been a thousand universes away already.
The automatic doors slid open on silent hinges, and a cool blast of chilled air washed over Brie and me, dispersing the sticky heat of the day. Our footsteps echoed loudly on clean marble floors.
I looked at the detective, and she drew her sidearm again.
The lobby was a wide-open space, well lit, with a set of polished wooden stairs leading up to the second floor opposite a bank of clear glass elevators. It was also deserted. Not a soul in sight. From the center of the lobby, I looked up and could see all the way through the heart of the building to the top floor, about five stories high.
“Quiet, don’t you think?” I muttered.
A loud thump echoed from above, shattering the silence. Brie snapped her head up just as two figures impacted against the waist-high barrier on the third floor. I caught a flash of dark hair and a bald, tattooed head. With a sharp cry, the brawling pair tumbled over the barrier, ten meters up.
Brie gasped, and I pulled us both a careful step back as the two men plummeted down through the air and struck the floor at our feet. The larger, bald man hit first, and Ethan—bless his quick thinking—landed on top of him. A long, black duffel bag hit the floor nearby.
Ethan rolled off the bald man with a groan. His lip was bloody, and it looked as though he’d taken one awesome right hook to his left eye, which was swelling shut fast. His good eye focused on me, and he made a dismissive gesture with his hand.
“He’s all yours, boss.”
Baldy was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and an Army surplus–green jacket. He shuffled away from Ethan, dragging himself with his palms. A steady trickle of blood dribbled down his chin from his mouth. If this was our shooter, then I hoped something vital was bleeding.
Surprising Brie and me both, he spun on his leg and made it to one knee.
“Don’t move!” Brie said, raising her gun to cover the man.
Baldy thought about it, and I saw the look on his face and knew what was going to happen next. His eyes narrowed, survival mode kicked in, and his lips pulled back from his bloodied teeth in a snarl. I’d seen that look in the eyes of a hundred Renegades—men and women I’d killed during the Tome Wars. I’d seen it in King Morpheus Renegade’s eyes when I’d pierced his heart with the Roseblade atop the highest tower in Atlantis, and I’d seen it in the eyes of his Immortal Queen, Emily Grace, as she had kicked me broken and bleeding from the top of that same tower.
His hand slipped lightning-fast into his jacket and emerged carrying a cold, silver pistol. Baldy swung the gun around, toward Brie. My palms burst to life with ethereal, Willful light—
A clear shot rang out and echoed through the lobby.
The bullet took my would-be-assassin right between the eyes. His head snapped back, and a spray of gore—blood, bone, and brain—exited his skull.
He died before he hit the floor.
Detective Brie whimpered—a small, lonely sound somewhere between a cry and a gasp—and swayed on the spot. I banished the Will from my palms before she saw it and made to catch her, but she steadied herself and kept her gun aimed at Baldy.
The commotion had finally brought people out of the lecture theatres and workshops adjoining the lobby. Brie ordered them back, securing the scene as she had been
taught, and approached Baldy with caution. She kicked the silver gun from his hand and across the marble floor to his duffel bag, which most likely held the rifle he’d used to kill a duck not five minutes ago.
“You,” Brie said and pointed a severe finger at me. A slight tremble to her voice, as if she were on the verge of tears, made me pause. “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”
“No, ma’am.”
She holstered her weapon and flipped open her phone. I could already hear sirens in the distance, from the call she’d made back at the tavern.
Ethan was sitting up, holding his head in his hands. I kept a careful eye on my surroundings, in case Baldy wasn’t working alone, and kneeled down next to my apprentice.
“How you feeling?” I asked.
Ethan looked up. His left eye was fused shut, and he was drawing low, ragged breaths. “Think I broke a rib,” he wheezed. “Or three.”
I gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “I’d heal it, but we’re being watched. We’ll get Sophie to tend to you later.”
He mumbled something incomprehensible that sounded a lot like a string of violent curses.
“Well, that’s what you get for chasing down men with guns.”
“Took the elevator to the fifth floor,” he said. “The doors opened and there he was… He knew I knew soon as our eyes met. Chased him down two floors and… Did I do good?”
“I’d give it a six out of ten, to be honest. Your form was sloppy, but you did stick the landing.”
Ethan chuckled and then winced. “Ow… ow… Don’t make me laugh, you bastard.”
“Chin up,” I said, as Brie put her phone away and began to walk our way. “I’ll teach you something cool next Will lesson as a reward, hmm?”
“How is he?” Brie asked, one hand on her hip.
Ethan waved her concern away and tried to stand. I forced him back down with little effort. Quite a crowd was gathering on the outskirts of our little crime scene. What seemed like a thousand smart phones were snapping pictures and, from what I understood of the damn things, recording video.
“How are you, Detective?” I asked. That hand on her hip was pale, clenched, and shaking. Her olive skin was a pasty shade of white. “Let me find you a seat…”
“Just stay where you are, Mr. Hale,” she said, swallowing hard. “Grey and the uniforms will be here soon. You—you’ll have to give another statement and perhaps explain why killers are leaving you messages in blood by night, and trying to shoot you by day.”
“I don’t—”
“Stop,” she said, and raised her palm. “Just don’t.”
I nodded, got to my feet, and crossed my hands behind my back. “Do you think this chap here is our killer from last night?” I didn’t think any such thing, but keeping her talking was good. Whatever had killed that man in Kings Park hadn’t been human. The ferocity and the Forget-themed message were testament enough to that.
“I can’t know that, can I?” she snapped. “Sorry. I’m just… I’ve never…”
Brie trailed away and I wanted to reach out and touch her forearm, offer some comfort, but that felt too friendly, given the nature of our relationship to date. “You’ve never had to use your weapon before.”
Brie stared at what was left of Baldy’s head, lying in a widening pool of blood, and nodded. “No. No, I haven’t.”
Taking a life was… hard. And that’s coming from a man responsible for the direct death of millions. Destroying something living, however corrupt or evil, is numbing. Every creature in the universe is born knowing right from wrong—my grandfather told me that, once upon a time—and killing, however justified, is wrong on a fundamental level. The deliberate act of ending someone else’s life was morally reprehensible, even in self-defense.
But then morals are all well and good in theory. In the real world, in all the real worlds, we sometimes could not afford the luxury of morality. Or a good night’s sleep.
“Kill or be killed,” I said gently. “You did the right thing.”
Brie met my gaze, and her eyes did not waver, or blink, for a long moment.
“To protect the innocent,” I continued. “To ensure the least amount of life lost—yours, mine, Ethan’s—you did the right thing.”
“I’m not sure how innocent you are, Mr. Hale.”
Police detectives were trained to read people. I guess half a day was all this sassy young detective needed to size me up. She had my number, through and through. A wailing evacuation siren began to stream through invisible speakers overhead and all across the university.
It had only taken about twenty minutes, but someone had decided a gunman on campus was cause to evacuate. Most of the crowd in the lobby shuffled back into their lecture theaters, collecting bags before heeding the warning. A lot stayed put, still gawking at the dead man.
About five minutes later, a cadre of uniformed officers stormed into Engineering Building 23 and closed down the crime scene. They cleared out the lobby and strung that yellow caution tape around things, looking busy and important. A couple of paramedics hauled Ethan onto a stretcher and took him away.
After that, things happened very quickly. A group of detectives from Joondalup Police Station, just two minutes from the university, took Brie aside and bombarded her with questions. I was left with a “protective” guard of two uniformed men, given that the shooter had been aiming at me. I was no fool—they were there to ensure I didn’t slip away during the chaos. They sat me down on a cool metal bench alongside the automatic doors.
Senior Detective Sam Grey, the man who had driven me home just that morning, strode into the building in a finely pressed suit a quarter of an hour later. His reading glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, just below his snowy white hair. He took one look at Baldy and gave me a curt, appraising nod, before rescuing Brie from her colleagues and finally sitting her down in a row of chairs underneath the stairs.
A cup of steaming coffee appeared from somewhere and made it into the young detective’s hands. A splash of scotch probably would not have gone amiss either. Alas, all my bottles were at home.
Eventually, Grey made his way over to me and took a seat just to my left. He motioned the two officers away and took off his glasses, cleaning them on the cuff of his suit jacket. I thought I caught a glimmer of something that could have been friendly in his eyes.
We sat that way for a long moment.
“Nasty business,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Thirty years as a detective, and I’ve never had to draw my service revolver. Not once.”
“That’s a good record.”
“Annie—that is, Detective Brie, has been a detective for six months.”
“A not-so-good record, but at least she’s still alive.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Now would you care to explain, Mr. Hale, how you find yourself at the center of two major crime scenes inside of twelve hours?”
Straight to the heart of the matter—I liked that. Too much bullshitting in the world, if you ask me. “What? You’re not going to play ‘good cop, bad cop’?”
“I’m an old cop, son. I don’t play games.”
“In all honesty, I can’t explain it.”
Which was the truth, in a way. A poor truth. I couldn’t explain the bloody message or this latest attempt on my life. I’d not sensed a drop of Will in Baldy before he’d died, which made him just a normal human unless he was masking his Will—which made no sense because he could’ve escaped with it. Or killed us all in a variety of ways easier than a bullet.
“I’ve been looking into you all morning,” Grey continued. “You moved to Perth five and a half years ago. I can’t place that accent of yours, and there’s no real record of you beyond property purchase deeds, a bank account, and your utility bills stretching back those same five and a half years. You don’t have a driver’s licence, which for a big place like Western Australia is odd, and as far as I can tell you don’t use the Internet—which, for a young man these da
ys, is odder still. You file a tax return every year, but that bookshop of yours runs at a significant loss.” He placed his glasses back on his face. “Care to fill in a few blanks for me, Mr. Hale?”
“Okay, you got me, I’m an alien. I arrived on your planet five years ago to drink your women and sleep with your scotch.” Grey stared at me. Something in his eyes became a few degrees colder. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I do that sometimes, make light of things around tragedy. It’s a flaw and I’m working on it.”
“Do you have any family in Perth?”
“No. I’ve no family in Perth.”
“Overseas?”
“As far as I know, it’s just me on this big, blue marble. My father is dead, and I never knew my mother.”
Another poor truth. All I knew of her was her name—Maria Hale. Whenever I thought of her, I thought of ambrosia and dark, red lipstick. As far as I knew, she had abandoned my father and me when I was two. Walter Hale had fathered another son years before all that, and that strapping young man had grown up to become the current High Lord and King of the Knights Infernal, Jon Faraday, who had taken his mother’s name. Walter Hale had been killed in a Renegade skirmish when I was six.
So my living family, what I knew of it, added up to one older half-brother and my father’s father, Aloysius Hale—who had been imprisoned for my sins at the end of the Tome Wars nearly six years ago now. They both lived in another universe, a sparkling jewel of the Story Thread—Ascension City.
The heart of Forget.
“What was your father’s name?” Grey asked.
I told him and he jotted it down in his notebook. These detectives did love their notebooks. Doubtful there would be much in the way of records on the man. He was born on True Earth, just like me, but had spent most of his life in Ascension City. Just like me.
“What are you involved in, Mr. Hale? Are you doing something illegal? Are you in trouble? Whatever it is, people are dying, and you need to tell me.”