by Dan Stout
* * *
Back in the Hasam, I collapsed in my seat and took inventory of what I had going for me. It didn’t take long to build the list. All the evidence in the lab was going up in smoke. I’d trashed our best shot at getting a clean conviction because I’d gone in too fast and hot. I’d put other cops at risk, and I’d let Ajax risk his own skin to save mine.
There was one other thing I knew: I couldn’t stop. Not now.
Harlan was going down. His pet psychopath Heidelbrecht was going down. Gellica and Paulus and any other official bought and paid for by Rediron funds—they were going down as well. I’d burn the whole damn city if that’s what it was going to take.
The howl of a siren echoed down the street and a fire truck whipped by, its lights painting the buildings red and white in turn. As it lit up the interior of the Hasam, I turned the key in the ignition and headed in the opposite direction.
35
IN MY APARTMENT THE NIGHT was blessedly silent. For a moment I could breathe, and pretend that the noose wasn’t tightening around my neck. That illusion, and the silence, was shattered by a knock on my apartment door. I walked over gently, avoiding the two spots where I knew the floor squeaked, and put my eye to the peephole, expecting to see Ajax.
Instead, I saw Gellica.
The fisheye lens of the peephole distended her face, pulling her nose and mouth forward like a wolf’s muzzle. My conversation with Heidelbrecht had convinced me that it had been Harlan who was behind Talena’s poisoning, but the oilman had known exactly what buttons to push in order to convince me to take the flask. Gellica still had to answer for that, and for the subsequent persecution of Talena. I opened the door.
I said, “I wasn’t aware that you knew where I lived.”
“You’re in the phone book,” she said. Her arms were tightly crossed. The thin fabric of her linen suit wasn’t adequate warmth this far from the Mount. “Are you going to let me in? It’s cold out here.”
I stepped aside and let her walk into the apartment. I closed the door and flipped the deadbolt home before following a few paces behind.
“Pretty ballsy move, coming over here alone,” I said. “After what you did to me.”
Gellica stopped in the middle of my living room, between the stereo system and threadbare couch. She half turned, looking at me over her shoulder, the white of her suit set off by the purple silk of her neck scarf.
“And you’re pretty cocky for a guy who got beaten half to death in my house,” she said. “You’re heavier than you look, by the way.”
The shadow figure had been Gellica. She’d drawn away Paulus and carried me to safety. I leaned against the wall near my stacked milk crates filled with vinyl records and newer 8-track tapes.
Eyes closed, she shook her head. “You have no idea what that’s going to cost me.”
Anger swelled in my chest.
“You have any idea what your scheming and controlling boss is costing me?” My voice cracked, and I tried again. “Someone almost died because of it. Someone with absolutely no connection to you or your boss. I certainly would’ve died if Harlan Cedrow had his way.”
“I know.” Her hands clasped together. “And I’m sorry. But I had nothing to do with it.”
“You’re telling me that when I came to your office with that flask—”
“It was just a flask you left behind. I didn’t think twice about it.”
I’d never really believed she’d done anything to the flask. It just didn’t seem her style. Betrayal, though. That was a real possibility.
“You asked what rig my old man worked on. Why?”
Her eyes were on the ground and she idly kicked at one of Rumple’s toys. “Because I wanted to know,” she said.
I squinted, as if I could see the truth if I only looked hard enough. Heidelbrecht had pulled Jenny’s file and practically gotten my entire life story. Maybe he hadn’t needed Gellica’s help. I threw another accusation at her.
“You’ve got someone inside the Bunker,” I said, and waited for the denial.
“Of course we do. Information is the currency we deal in. There’s not a politician—or a cop—in this town who doesn’t have insiders and informants on their payroll. And no one has more information than the ambassador.”
“Paulus.” I spit the name like a curse, and Gellica let it sit in the air between us. A car drove past, slats of light spilled through the blinds, playing across our faces. For an instant we were painted in strips of black and white, no areas of gray. So unlike the real world. Then it was gone.
“I asked her if she was your mother,” I said.
Gellica turned, eyebrow raised. “And?”
“She denied it.”
Gellica looked away, a halfhearted smile tugging at her lips. She wiped her hands across the fabric of her pants as if she were brushing off crumbs, then turned back to me with her eyes open wide.
“That’s true as far as it goes. I was created by Paulus, of Paulus, to serve Paulus.”
My flesh crawled, though I couldn’t say why, and for a moment I longed for the comforting weight of a gun in my hand.
Gellica drew a deep, courage-gathering breath. The kind of breath a lover takes before telling you they’ve been unfaithful. The kind I used to take before breaking bad news to a victim’s loved ones.
“I was made of her flesh,” she said. “Nurtured and grown in her home in the Hills. Of a dozen brood mates, I was the only one to survive.”
I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.
“Brood mates?”
“When the world was rich in manna, some sorcerers were rumored to have learned how to create a homunculus, a living being crafted from their own flesh and the raw essence of manna. A child of magic.”
“Uh-huh.” I walked past her, through my living room and into the kitchen. “And you’re one of these humonocle things?” I poured myself a water. I didn’t offer her one.
“Homunculus,” she said. “No, the manna cost to create homunculi is too great, and the skills are long lost in any case. Paulus managed to find someone, a bioengineer with mad ideas—”
“Heidelbrecht.” It seemed I couldn’t get away from that lunatic. “At the lab, it was like he just . . . evaporated.”
“From what I understand, that’s a habit of his.” She said it with a hollow laugh.
I took a drink of water. “Oh?”
“Heidelbrecht created a new procedure incorporating manna and somatic cell nuclear transfer. And that technique created me. I’m a takwin. Part clone, part homunculus.” She lifted her chin, and a touch of irony crept into her voice. “I am the highest blend of science and sorcery.”
“So Paulus is your mother.”
“No. She is me. An earlier version of me. I am her directly, with no interference from a father. All my chromosomes, all my genes are from her. Shaped and powered by sorcery. I am a blend of Paulus and the raw essence of manna.”
“The raw essence of manna?”
She gave a solemn nod. “Yes.”
I wiped a hand across my mouth. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Gellica blinked. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before she managed to get out, “Excuse me?”
“You expect me to believe that magic is your daddy?”
She stared.
“Oh, come on,” I said, anger creeping into my voice. “You grow up and your mother tells you that you never met your dad because she made you with forbidden magic, and you believe her? Your father is some middle manager, a one-night stand Paulus regrets.” I set the water down and pointed at her. “You’re not the ‘blend of science and sorcery,’ you’re the result of blending too much vodka in the punch at the annual office party.”
Gellica was silent a moment longer, then reached over to the table lamp that sat beside my couch. She t
ilted the lampshade, causing her shadow to jump up the wall. She took several short breaths, enough of them that I worried she was hyperventilating. I stepped forward, but stopped as the color began to drain out of her. I don’t mean she got pale, I mean that her entire figure, body and clothes, turned gray, then progressively darker, like someone cranking the color adjustment on a television set. While she faded to a shadow, her shadow grew more vibrant, and flexed. It was no longer matching her movements.
The former shadow hunched over, then stretched out across the wall. Its mouth opened. But instead of stopping where a normal jaw would stop, the shadow jaw continued to drop impossibly low. The shadow’s jaw fell to the middle of its chest, widening and revealing a mouthful of shadow teeth. The shadow was now the same shade of gray as Gellica herself, then it was paler, moving toward white. The dark shape that had been Gellica crossed its arms while the white shadow on the wall dropped to all fours. And then it roared.
A great gust of hot wind shot past my face, smelling of rank meat and leaving me stunned and speechless. From the apartments around mine I could hear muffled yells. I stood, stunned, as she and her shadow reversed the process. Her suit brightened back to white, and Gellica regained her normal chestnut brown complexion.
She twisted a lip. “You were saying?”
* * *
“A homunculus, huh?”
“A takwin,” she corrected.
We sat side by side on the fire escape outside my apartment, legs dangling over the edge, staring out over the city as it hustled below us. Drivers laid on their horns and swore at one another as jaywalkers darted across slowed traffic like minnows passing a pack of sharks. I’d loaned her a spare coat to hold off the chill of the air.
“But”—I shook my head—“how is that even possible? Even when the world was filled with manna, stuff like that didn’t happen. You’re talking fairy tales.”
Gellica looked at me, the glare of streetlights reflected in her eyes.
“Do you remember the first time you heard about the Titan? When you were taught to say thanks every time you walked outside?”
“No,” I said. “I suppose I was too young to remember.”
“You were told the kids’ version, I’m sure. The one that gets recited by parents while putting up Titan’s Day decorations.” She sighed. It was a soft, wistful noise set against the sounds of the city night. “That version’s nice. All about the gift of heat that allows the city to exist in the middle of the ice desert. You don’t hear about the blood and suffering that comes with sacrifice until later.”
“Maybe kids should have a grace period before they need to deal with reality.”
She held a rail in each hand, looking through them like a toddler in a crib.
“My point,” she said, “is that sometimes fairy tales are true. And a lot bloodier than you’ve been led to believe.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, and finally ended up with, “That’s tough.”
“That’s growing up with Paulus.”
I grunted an assent, and asked, “So why are you telling me this? This has got to be a state secret or something.”
That got a grim laugh out of her. Even with everything, I still liked it when she smiled.
“No states, just me. And Paulus.” She pursed her lips. “I only told you because I need you to believe me right now. All my cards are on the table.”
“So you’ll level with me?” I asked.
She nodded. “Ask me anything.”
“Does Paulus control Harlan?”
“No. Harlan isn’t an easy man to control. She had no idea that it was him who killed the Squib diplomat. When we got the news about Haberdine’s death she was . . .” She hugged her arms close, chilled by the cool air or the memory of Paulus’s reaction. “Furious doesn’t cover it. The killing set the entire project back months, if it hasn’t already sunk it.”
“But once she was presented with the situation . . .”
“She made the best of the hand she was dealt.”
“By pointing us to Lowell and Cordray.”
“We decided to sacrifice a couple of expendable envoys already marked for disposal. Well worth it, if it meant stabilizing the situation and removing the blackmail threat.”
“Threat? How much of a threat could a handful of candies trying to protect themselves be?”
“It wasn’t. Not to her. But some of the city’s politicians have been getting burned. Find someone to hang for the crime quickly, with salacious details, and you prevent panic and bring the negotiations back online at the same time. Besides, you met Lowell and Cordray. The world’s better off with them behind bars, or at least out of our hair.”
“But I pursued Flanagan, so you changed the plan.”
She nodded. “Lowell and Cordray were instructed to implicate Flanagan. It didn’t really matter who we blamed, as long as they were caught and convicted. Like I told you when we first met, all we wanted was for you to make an arrest.”
My stomach knotted. I ignored it. “And when that fell through, your plan—”
“Paulus’s plan.”
“Fine. Paulus’s plan was to hang the Squib killing on Talena.” I watched Gellica when I said it, and I saw her wince. I hoped that meant she had a conscience, and maybe carried some regrets. “So why the raid on the lab?”
“For Heidelbrecht. Once you told her he was in town, she put out all her feelers. Our man in your department said a detective pulled the file on some muscle, and it mentioned a connection to Heidelbrecht. We had him run with it.”
I’d asked Hemingway to pull a report on Knuckles’s ID card. When she did, it tipped the location of the lab.
“That man of yours in the department,” I said. “Kravitz?”
“Yes.”
“He’s looked half dead since he took over the Haberdine investigation.”
“The ambassador makes a lot of demands.” Her eyes drifted to the skyline. “Lots of demands.”
“What’s she have on him?” I asked. “I doubt it’s just greed.”
Hemingway hesitated. “I can tell you, but . . .” She rubbed her chin. “Let’s say he’s in over his head, and now he’s trying to protect his family.”
I decided not to push it. One set of lost causes at a time.
“Okay,” I said. “So when I found your boss was sitting in your house alone—”
“Waiting for me,” Gellica said. “She wanted to talk privately, away from the rest of her subordinates.”
“So she sat in the dark?”
“She said she was watching a movie when she heard someone come in through a window. She stayed to see who it was. It’s not like she can’t take care of herself.”
When I didn’t answer, she shrugged. “Power and wealth can lead to some unusual behavior.”
“Well, she did seem obsessed when I mentioned Heidelbrecht’s name.” I didn’t point out that I still had the bruises and aches to prove it.
“He broke some kind of agreement by coming here,” she said. “I don’t know the details, and I’m smart enough not to ask.”
I rubbed my temples. The layers of corruption and betrayal were astonishing, even to someone like me who’d known Titanshade politics my whole life.
“I still don’t get why Harlan went to bat for Flanagan,” I said.
The metal railing creaked as she leaned back to look at me, surprise written across her face. “Because Flanagan was innocent. Harlan helps people he thinks need help. It’s what the man does. Or did, anyway.”
My jaw dropped. “Help people? He’s running around with aerosol cans of Squib smell, and I have no idea what he’s going to do with them. He’s murdered and bullied his way into power—”
She held up a hand. “I can’t tell you how his conscience works. But he was born to power. And for most of his life he spent a fair amount
of time and money aiding people who he thought were in need. Maybe it’s religious, maybe it’s psychosis, but it’s the way he is.”
“So why are you here?”
She took a breath. “To make you an offer. Find Harlan. Stop him, and find someone to hang the Squib killing on. Do that and the evidence against your blackmailing friend will disappear.”
My pulse picked up. Finally, I could see a way to pull Talena out of the mess I’d created.
“Paulus will do that?” I spoke carefully. “Last time I saw her she was ready to kill me.”
“She’s got no choice. There’s no one else left. The Bunker’s in chaos. The discovery of Heidelbrecht’s lab is causing a complete rollout. In the middle of all that, how many of your colleagues are willing to risk their careers to chase down one of the most influential men in the city?”
“Your boss can manipulate everyone in City Hall. She has full control of the police department, the fire department, and anyone else I can name,” I said.
Her grip tightened on the rails of the fire escape. “Who are currently trying to lock down an entire city. I can pull some strings and get you a support team, but that’s the best we can do.”
“Call in the feds,” I said.
“You honestly think there’s time for that?”
I didn’t. There were some drawbacks to sitting at the icy crown of the world, one of which was that you had to take care of your policing on your own.
“Tell her to go herself,” I said. “Do it on her own.”
“She’s powerful,” said Gellica. “But she’s not a fighter.” Her lips pulled down. “She leaves that for others.”
“She seemed like a decent fighter when I was pinned facedown to the carpet,” I said. “But I take your point.”
“Besides, she’s got her hands full keeping things together here. You may not like her, but everything she’s done has been to keep this situation from blowing up even more.”