The Night Watch

by Sean Stewart

  I want you to understand these Snows, Water Spider had said. For one day, I think, 1 will need you to kill one for me.

  A distant voice called out. “Hey!”

  “Shit,” Jen whispered. Somehow one of the flesh and blood perimeter pickets had seen him—must have some equipment that let him see in the dark. The sentry started running toward him. “White bitch broke my fucking luck,” Jen swore. He should have found a new one. Shit. Too late now. He turned and ran. Only trouble was, a real live Snow was going to be quicker and stronger than he was. Fuck.

  He raced to Taylor Street and turned into it, feet slapping echoes off the pavement. His legs starved for oxygen and grew heavy but he forced himself not to let up, sprinting for the Sing Tao offices at the corner of Pender Street. He would feel better once he had buildings blocking the line of sight between himself and the Snow. Twenty steps, ten, five—home free!

  With a hissing crackle of railgun fire, brick blew out of the corner of the Sing Tao building. A hot fragment slashed into his shoulder and knocked him down.

  now

  “What the hell was that all about?” Lubov said.

  “I don’t know, but he’s gone and the guards are running after him,” Emily said, scrambling to her feet. “We’ll never have a better chance to get to the barracks and recruit our army.”

  She jogged toward the barracks with Lubov behind her and John Walker striding at her side.

  “Sister-fucker!” Holding his shoulder, Jen staggered to his feet and hared off down the alley, running back toward Government House; surely they wouldn’t guess he would go that way. A second later he remembered again that the fuckers could track people in the middle of the fucking night, by Buddha’s three-pronged cock, but by then it was too late to change his mind. At least the alleys provided garbage cans for cover, and crates and junked cars. Precious good that would do against railguns that could cut through brick walls.

  Out the alley, down half a block and along Pender—anything not to stay in a direct line of sight.

  What the fuck was he going to do now? His legs were like burning logs. He was in good shape, but this was four blocks at a flat-out sprint. The spit in his mouth tasted like blood. Hell, maybe it was blood, maybe the brick shrapnel had cut him up. He couldn’t feel anything from his wounded shoulder. Just as well.

  He burst across Columbia and almost fainted. He was less than a block from Government House, which was crawling with the other fucking Snow guards.

  Shit shit shit, better run like hell, better—

  “Jen?”

  He spun around at the sound of his name.

  The demon who had come for him in the New Moon Manor was standing at the mouth of the alley. She was dressed all in red, with a red flower in her dark hair.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  She walked slowly toward him. Soldiers pounded into sight behind her. She stopped. He had always loved her. “You are so beautiful,” he said.

  Red fire blossomed suddenly, everywhere, and he was lying on the pavement.

  She knelt over him. He tried to speak, there was something he wanted to say, something terribly important, but she laid the red nail of one finger gently on his lips. She was even more beautiful than she had been in the New Moon Manor. His heart broke with desire. The dizzy scent of her filled the night, all flowers and cordite. He tried to speak again but blood bubbled from his mouth instead, red on red. Dimly he was aware there were men standing around him, their voices distant. Someone said, “The fucking slant’s bought it.”

  The years of his mother’s loneliness sprang to his eyes and he was sorry, so sorry he had failed her again. Failed her, failed her, failed everyone, and he had never made it right.

  Then the woman in red bent down, her black hair sweet and smelling like darkness, and they kissed.

  Chapter

  Twenty-seven

  When Water Spider’s father found him just before midnight, he was sitting on his balcony and contemplating the wetness of his feet.

  Water Spider’s feet were wet because it was raining, again, interminably. While he had taken the precaution of bringing an umbrella out onto the balcony with him, the fact that he—sat? lounged? slumped?—on a wicker chaise lounge left his legs entirely uncovered below the knee. He had been drinking as steadily as the rain had been raining, and on balance it seemed rather less effort to leave his legs where they were than to move them. The lazy things would just have to fend for themselves.

  The sun had gone down a long time ago. Just to the left of his balcony, clinging to the edge of the roof, a carved gargoyle of vengeful aspect vomited rainwater continuously between his stone lips. A knock came on the balcony door. Water Spider did not bother to turn around. “Enter. I mean, exit. Anyway, no doors here,” he said. “Only archways and windows.”

  “Spider?”

  “We are an empty building,” Water Spider said. “Un-occupied,” he added, by way of emphasis. “Hello, Father.”

  “You are drunk,” Floating Ant observed.

  “It is a pleasure to succeed at something.”

  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “Hm.”

  His father settled into the other wicker chair.

  They sat together in the rain. The umbrella did not quite cover Floating Ant. Rain dripped from the edges of his floppy black hat. A few apartments over and a few floors down, an altercation began. To judge by the sound, someone was beating a cat to death with a pair of cymbals.

  “Not at all,” Water Spider said.

  “What?”

  “Um.” Water Spider felt some dim species of alarm nosing around inside him like a carp at the bottom of a muddy pool. “You can’t be here. The Snows will have guards posted everywhere around me. Watchers.”

  “Not tonight,” Floating Ant said. “They have other problems to concern them just now. I was hoping to show you.”

  “Wine is a very inferior drink,” Water Spider said. “I have been studying it with some attention today and I must tell you that wine is a very poor habit compared to tea.”

  Floating Ant reached across his son’s body and took the drinking bowl from his hand. He sniffed. “Ah. But you drink very excellent tea, whereas this is decidedly inferior wine. What do the words ‘gas-line antifreeze’ mean to you?”

  “Not very much.”

  “I thought not.”

  “You betrayed me,” Water Spider said. Floating Ant set the drinking bowl gently on the wooden deck. Rain splashed into the plum wine; ripples bloomed in it like roses. “I only figured it out this afternoon, after I started drinking. I was somewhere into my third cup when I remembered something Winter said, about how you and he had been forged in a different fire from the rest of us. I never would have guessed, but when I thought of you as him, you two terrible, hard old men, suddenly many things became clear to me.”

  “Indeed.” There was a metallic crash followed by a protracted scream from the unseen cat, followed by silence and then muted cursing. “And what will you do with this new knowing, Spider?”

  “Do?” Water Spider laughed. “I am not going to do anything. Knowledge can be entirely divorced from action, I have discovered. Knowing a thing changes the world not at all. I rather think that the more I know, the less I shall do. ‘Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse!’ as Chuang Tzu remarks.”

  Floating Ant laughed. “‘Begone! I too will wag my tail in the mud!’”

  “And you did,” Water Spider said. “All the years of my life.”

  “That is true,” his father said.

  People were gathering in the streets. This struck Water Spider as odd. He was not sure what time it was, but he knew it had been dark for a while. Someone in the crowd pointed up at his balcony and jeered. He turned away as if from a slap.

  Well.

  “I was to tell the Southsiders that Li Mei was hidden in the Garden,” Water Spider said. “I was to bring them into open conflic
t with the Powers.” He nodded. “An admirable strategy. Did it work? Are you not worried the Dragon will put Winter on the Emperor’s throne? Johnny Ma has convinced me that the Dragon is working to fill the red chair, and Winter is the kind of man who might win the Dragon’s blessing. Hard. Warlike.”

  “The Powers would never put a barbarian on the throne.”

  Water Spider glanced at his father with a flash of his old skepticism. “So Huang Ti said. No doubt the scholars of the court made such pronouncements daily as the Mongols swept down upon the Middle Kingdom.”

  “I came to tell you that the Snows are melting. Will you not come see?”

  “Ah. All the people in the street,” Water Spider said. “I will. It will be good for me to walk among them. I can explore the nuances of this surprising new infamy I have acquired.”

  “No one must accuse you,” Floating Ant said. “I will see the truth is known.”

  “You don’t know the truth, Father. Not all of it. Even at your advanced age I am afraid you will not be spared some disappointments—Hm.” Water Spider frowned. “I find I cannot stand.”

  “Li Mei is brewing a pot of Tiger Health inside. It will steady you.”

  Water Spider made a face. “No doubt. Li Mei, did you say? When did Li Mei arrive?”

  “With me. You talked to her just now, after I sat down.”

  “I did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Water Spider kept his face expressionless. “I have no memory of this. How…unpleasant. I do not think I shall emulate your prowess with the drinking bowl, Honored Father.”

  “Good boy,” Floating Ant said.

  Claire was outside when the disturbance began. Unable to sleep, she had been prowling the two-block radius around Government House that was the limit of her “area of duty”—David Oliver’s exquisitely polite phrase for the orbit of her house arrest.

  She found she wasn’t the only person waiting for something to happen. Although it was nearly midnight, the streets were crowded; umbrella spokes were a genuine menace, poking out everywhere like the spines of so many black sea-urchins. Claire felt even more conspicuous than usual, wading through throngs of small Chinese people like some strange white bird paddling on a sea of bobbing black and red umbrella tops. She wondered why hoods had never caught on here. She was very grateful for the one on her army jacket. Hell of a lot more convenient than an umbrella.

  How alien the chatter and clang of Cantonese still sounded to her ears. Surprising how alone you could feel in a crowd.

  She made her way over to the picket stationed on the southwest corner of Government House. “Quite a bustle out tonight, eh?”

  “You said it. Do you know why the slants are so excited?”

  Claire shrugged. “I gave up trying to understand what happens here.”

  “I tell you one thing, they aren’t out to throw us a welcoming party.” The guard was wearing night goggles and a radio clip. He carried the standard-issue railgun.

  A chattering burst of explosions echoed from down the street. Claire jumped. The guard grinned. “Gets the old heart going the first few times, doesn’t it? Just firecrackers.”

  “Are you sure? That sounded like railgun fire.”

  “Tell me about it. I nearly blew someone’s head off my first night on duty. This kid—twelve maybe, thirteen at the most—this kid came up and threw a whole pack of firecrackers at me, right at my feet. Bam! Bam Bam Bam Bam Bammity Bam-bam-bam! I started to shoot his hand off when it went back for the throw, but he looked so young, you know. So I just stood there and then the crackers started going off and I thought, Well fuck it, Reniak, now you’ve gone and let yourself get dead.”

  “I don’t envy your job.”

  Reniak shrugged. “The whole position stinks. I’m not some kid on his Compulsory. I’m career army, and this is the shits. Well, it’s a living, I guess. You take the bad with the good.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why are you talking with me? Most people are a little more…uncomfortable, when I’m around.”

  Reniak grinned. “You got out of the barracks alive, didn’t you? Lady, you are the one person in this man’s army we know is going to get out of Chinatown with her ass unscathed. As far as I’m concerned, you can stand at my station all night.”

  “Oh,” Claire said. “Well, thank you, Private. I think. Is it just my imagination, or has the crowd gotten quieter all of a sudden?”

  “Mm.” Private Reniak’s hands shifted on the butt of his gun.

  A whisper ran through the crowd like a cat’s-paw ruffling the surface of a lake. Then, through the sound of the falling rain and shifting bodies, the sound of a distant call, light and clear, followed immediately by a sentry’s challenge.

  “That’s Nichols, over by the barracks,” Private Reniak said. He stared intently into the darkness. Claire fumbled for the field glasses in her inside pocket.

  “Oh my God,” Reniak said.

  “What? What?” Claire got her glasses out and raised them, forgot how to turn on the photomultipliers manually—damn not having a familiar—remembered at last and then was looking out through the ghostly night-vision world. At least she was getting some real value out of being tall, as she could easily see over the bobbing umbrellas.

  A delegation was walking across the asphalt of the old parking lot from where the burned barracks had been. On the left walked a heavily muscled young man, army from his bearing, although he carried no weapons Claire could see. On the right, a tall figure dressed in an ancient army greatcoat like the one Winter used to wear when Claire had been a girl. And in between, straight-backed in a mud-splattered jumpsuit that had once been white, marched Emily, walking like she had the keys to the kingdom swinging on her belt. At her back, clearly visible, came a double file of Southside’s dead, ghosts in nightshirts and pajamas; a smattering in full uniform. The men who had died in the barracks fire.

  “Sweet Christ, girlchick, what the hell are you doing?” Claire murmured.

  “Blessed Virgin,” Reniak whispered.

  “Well, no she isn’t,” Claire said, grinning like an idiot. “But don’t say who told you.”

  She jostled and squeezed and elbowed her way through the crowd and arrived to find Emily and Private Nichols arguing. “I can’t go get General Beranek, miss, as I think I explained. I am on duty at this position.” He was shaking with fear and yet still he tried to hold his post. The poor dear brave little boys, Claire thought. No wonder Emily was so fond of them.

  Nichols tightened his grip on his gun. His eyes kept flicking to the ghosts at Emily’s back. “I’m afraid I will have to arrest you, miss.”

  “Are you going to arrest John Walker too?” Emily said. Nichols stared at the tall, silent man at her side and then moaned. Emily put a kindly hand on his shoulder. “Time is wasting, soldier. I’d like to see General Beranek, please. There are a lot of things we need to discuss.”

  “I don’t want General Beranek,” John Walker said. “I want Winter.”

  Emily flinched. “Please trust me,” she said.

  “Let me help you out,” Claire said to poor Nichols, stepping forward. “I’ll stay here with Emily. I’ll even arrest her, if you want. In fact, I’d like that. You get General Beranek out here double quick.”

  Nichols’ eyes flicked back to John Walker.

  “Get on with it, Mickey,” growled one of the ghosts behind Emily. Half his face was black, and when he made a shooing motion, bones showed through the skin of his hands.

  Nichols looked at Claire. “Is that a direct order, Lieutenant?”

  Claire’s commission was so purely ornamental that she had forgotten all about it, but she took the hint. “Absolutely, Private. That’s a direct order, and I will be responsible for the consequences.”

  “Thank God,” he said. “Sir.” And with that, he turned and ran for Government House like a jackrabbit ahead of a pack of wolves.

  The moment he
was gone, Emily lunged forward and hugged her governess. “Claire! You’re alive! Thanks unto the ages and ages! God is merciful.”

  Claire laughed. “Yes, I’m alive. So are you,” she said, stepping back. “More than just alive, it would appear. Do you know I was foolish enough to be worried about you?”

  “You were right to be. Only Providence and the Forest saved me. And Lieutenant Lubov, of course. Ignore his stripes; Mister Lubov has received a battlefield promotion.”

  The young serviceman on Emily’s left snapped off a salute. “Lieutenant.”

  “Lieutenant. Emily, you seem to have acquired some surprising troops.”

  “These men are not hers, they are mine,” John Walker said.

  “I have a claim,” Emily said quietly, looking back at the burned and broken men who stood in ragged file behind them. “I sent them here. They died under my command. I have a claim.” She turned back to Claire, and the governess could see the weariness and grief abiding in her. “What if he kills you, Emily?”

  “Then I will have one more soldier at my back,” John Walker said.

  “Have you met my father?” Claire asked him suddenly. “Where is he?”

  John Walker gave her a curious look. “Your father lives in the attic rafters of a small house on the North Side,” he said. “He is very cold.”

  The crowd of black umbrellas began to part. Claire could see it ripple all the way back to the doors of Government House. “It’s General Beranek.” He was flanked by four elite corpsmen, heavily armed.

  When he reached them, General Beranek looked at Emily, and then at the ghosts behind her. “Christ. So,” he said. “The prodigal daughter returns.”

  “Mike.”

  “This is a hell of a mess, Emily.”

  “I think we can clean it up.”

  “That will be your grandfather’s call. I could cry to see you alive, Em, but you’ve put us through a hell of a time here. I don’t think anyone is ready to forget and forgive. I’m not. And I don’t think your grandfather will be either.”

  Emily looked at him steadily. “I am,” she said.