The Golden City

by Cheney, J. Kathleen

  The apartment smelled musty, as if it hadn’t been aired in months. It wasn’t huge but larger than Joaquim’s and probably far more expensive. Two windows on the front wall looked out over Bonfim Street. They had sheer lace curtains, but the dark drapes over those were half-closed, letting in only a pale bar of light. Duilio didn’t draw back the drapes; that would surely be seen from the street. He glanced at the single kerosene lamp on a table near the door and discarded that idea as well. He didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence.

  Those with an artistic mentality were often held to be. . . .messy, and this tenant certainly lived up to that stereotype. Stacks of papers covered every horizontal surface in the front room. A low couch couldn’t be sat upon because of the piles of sketches obscuring it. More sketches on foolscap lined the edges of the walls, many of them torn and tattered about the edges, made into nests for mice. That explained the musty smell that was making his nose twitch. Duilio perused the paper-littered tables and then gingerly lifted a few drawings from the couch. He held one up to the light streaming in through the lace curtains. The charcoal sketch was a rudimentary likeness of the Duarte mansion, the first to be re-created by Espinoza and set upside down in the water.

  Duilio laughed softly. Joaquim had finally run the artist to ground.

  He didn’t want to stay in the place too long, but he needed to know what it had to tell him. Like most in the old town, the apartment was long and narrow, so Duilio headed for the door that led to the next room. He listened at the door and when he heard nothing, pushed the door open.

  The shadowy room was uninhabited. It was a bedroom, but only identifiable as such because a long, narrow bed had been set against the wall in the darkest corner. A pair of drafting tables with tilted tops dominated the room instead, the sort an architect might use. Both were completely immaculate, a stark contrast to the mess in the front room. The blankets on the bed had once been pulled tight, judging by the neat corners that were left.

  Duilio stepped back out into the front room, eyes narrowing. The clutter hadn’t been wrought by the missing inhabitant, but by mice. If not for their predations, the stacks would have been neat and organized. He looked at the couch with new eyes; it was a filing system. Apparently the inhabitant simply hadn’t ever planned on having guests.

  He turned back to the immaculate bedroom. The must-and-mouse smell carried through from the front room, and he could see evidence that the woolen blanket on the bed had been chewed as well. A small nightstand stood next to the bed. Duilio opened the single drawer, but saw only a dog-eared Bible within. He picked it up and checked for any inscription but found none. When he shook it out, nothing fell from between the pages. Sighing, he slid the book back into the drawer and closed it.

  He’d hoped to find some clue where the artist had gone, but his gift didn’t seem eager to attach significance to anything. “I could use some help,” he complained to himself.

  Nothing popped into his mind, so he threw his hands up and turned to search the drafting tables. A thorough going-over of the first revealed only the artist’s inks, pens, and pencils. The second had a neat stack of paper atop it, all of which appeared to be blank. Inside the drawer, he found a couple of blades for sharpening pencils, along with cleaning cloths and some wadded-up papers. It was unusual, given the neatness of everything else.

  His interest piqued, Duilio began removing the contents of the drawer. As he pulled out the last cloth, his fingers brushed something solid crammed into the very back of the drawer. He tugged on it and it came loose, a leather-bound volume.

  Duilio felt gooseflesh prickling along his arms, his gift alerting him. “Aha!”

  He flipped the book open and scanned the handwritten pages.

  He turned to the front of the volume and saw neatly dated entries, the first more than two years old. They appeared to be calculations of the distances from the riverbed to the ideal depths for the miniature houses. Grinning, Duilio tucked the journal into one of his coat pockets.

  With renewed energy, he inspected the two doors on the far wall. One opened onto a very dark dressing room that had definitely fallen prey to mice, judging by the odor. Garments lay strewn about. Pinching his nose closed to mitigate the smell, Duilio shoved open the door as wide as it would go and dug through the scattered garments with one boot. They were plain-looking garb in the dim light, more like a workman’s than the flamboyancy he expected of an artist. He’d judged the man too readily by his occupation. A basin and pitcher had been knocked from their commode, the pitcher’s handle broken off on the hardwood floor. A struggle?

  He cleared most of the clothing to one side and picked up the broken pitcher, then turned it over to view the unglazed base. Something dark discolored the porcelain, as if it had seeped into the porous material. Duilio crouched down. Near where the pitcher had lain, the cracks in the wood were darker as well. He felt sure it was blood, but couldn’t quite tell. Frustrated, he went back to fetch the lamp from the front room.

  A twinge of warning alerted his senses before he reached the bedroom door, setting his heart to racing. Duilio sniffed . . . and caught the distinctive odor of kerosene. He heard the sudden whoosh of a fire igniting.

  Duilio ran back to the front room and stopped in the doorway, aghast at the sight.

  Flames leapt several feet high, blocking the doorway, and for a second he couldn’t breathe, panic freezing him there in that spot. He clutched at the doorjamb. One of the few selkie traits he had inherited was an irrational fear of fire.

  Duilio squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t panic. Deal with this.

  He opened his eyes again and tried to take stock. Flames already coursed around the edge of the room, feeding off the scattered papers. His eyes flicked around the room, hunting for some escape.

  Damnation! How had the fire grown so fast? He couldn’t get near the door. Someone had splashed kerosene all over that wall.

  But there were still the front windows. The fire had already reached the couch in front of them, but hadn’t yet touched the curtains. He could get out that way. He had to, or else the fire would trap him in the narrow bedroom.

  Duilio ran back to the bed and stripped off the blanket, then returned to beat at the flames on the couch. Bits of charred paper flew up with the vigor of his actions, glowing on the edges. He took a deep breath, tasted ash, and started coughing. The flames roared, loud enough to drown out the sound of his harsh breathing. He cursed under his breath.

  Calm down.

  Covering his mouth with one sleeve, Duilio doggedly beat out the flames on the couch. He grabbed the top edge of the couch and flipped the whole thing over, sending more sparks into the air. But the backside of the couch wasn’t afire yet. He got behind it and shoved it over, away from the window. He grabbed the curtains and drapes and yanked them down, all in one heave, and tossed them over onto the upturned couch.

  He wiped ash and sweat from his face, then pressed close to the dust-clouded window to peer out. There were a dozen or more people in the street below, pointing and crying out. They weren’t looking at him.

  A huge groan came from the floor below his feet, and he knew.

  The woodworker’s shop on the first floor was ablaze as well—a place likely filled with stains and resins and other chemicals that would burn hot. For a second his breath stilled. A cold sweat broke out all over his body.

  Someone intended to bake him alive.

  CHAPTER 17

  Duilio looked out the window. It couldn’t be more than fifteen feet to the cobbles.

  He grappled with the latch and finally got it open, the windowpane swinging out and banging against the stop. That caused another round of cries as glass sprinkled down to the cobbles below. Smoke began to billow over his shoulder, and Duilio glanced back to see that the flames had almost reached his feet. He had no time left.

  He climbed over the sill and a second later dangled b
y his hands from the window’s frame. Voices urged him to drop, so he did so. He landed on his feet, but felt that jolt through his very teeth. People were still crying out, and there seemed to be chaos about him in the street.

  Then water splashed all over him from behind, startling him out of his numbness. “What in Hades’ name are you doing?”

  The man holding the bucket clapped Duilio’s shoulder. “Back of your coat was on fire.”

  Duilio instinctively craned his neck, trying to look at the back of his coat. “Thank you,” he mumbled as the man strode away.

  Something exploded in the shop then, scattering the pedestrians. Duilio backed away with the rest of the crowd. Another barrel or keg blew, this time shattering the front windows, and black smoke began to roil out of them, joining the stream that came from the upper floor. The Corps of Public Safety fought most of the fires in the city, but Duilio didn’t think they would get there in time to save any part of the building.

  I should not be here when they arrive, he thought with sudden clarity. His sodden and apparently burned jacket would place him as having been in the apartment. He didn’t want to try to explain his presence there to them. Pulling up the collar of his coat, he eased away through the crowd, heading in the direction of the church at the end of the street. He felt again the sense of being watched, but was too tired to care at the moment.

  Duilio settled on the stone steps before the church. His coat was ruined, so he tugged it off, rolled it up, and tucked it under his arm. His shirt and waistcoat were ruined as well, but weren’t as bad. He didn’t care, save that Marcellin was going to have a fit of apoplexy over this. A weak laugh worked its way out of his chest, then turned into a cough.

  “You need someone to watch your back,” a man said in a voice that suggested they’d been chatting for a couple of hours. “That time he almost got you.”

  Duilio looked to his right. Leaning against the stone wall that surrounded the church’s grounds was the man who’d thrown water on him when he’d hit the ground. The man’s dark skin and short-cropped black hair hinted he might be from one of the old African colonies. His eyes were an odd shade of smoky green, hard to mistake should he turn up again. His suit looked to be well made, although of a foreign cut. Oddly, Duilio’s gift had given him no warning about this man’s approach, as if he wasn’t there at all.

  Duilio rose, keeping the coat under his arm. He didn’t want to lose it—or the journal in one of the pockets. “Who almost got me?”

  “Donato Mata,” the man said. “Do you know him?”

  “No,” Duilio admitted. The name didn’t mean anything to him. “And you are?”

  “Inspector Gaspar, Special Police,” the man said.

  A frisson of worry slid down Duilio’s spine . . . but it wasn’t his gift warning him. It was simply the normal reaction to speaking with a member of that body. The man spoke in accented Portuguese—from Cabo Verde, if Duilio placed it correctly. The inspector extended a card in one gloved hand. “What exactly were you doing up there? Why is he after you?”

  Duilio took the card. It bore the man’s name, Miguel Gaspar, along with his seal and a stated rank of special investigator. It looked impressive, but it wouldn’t be difficult to find a printer to falsify cards. Despite his doubts, Duilio tucked the thing into the damp folds of his coat. The rank put this man above Joaquim. Even above Captain Rios, Duilio suspected. “What did you mean when you said he almost got me this time?”

  The man fixed his gaze on Duilio’s face. “He took a shot at you last night in a tavern. I assume your gift warned you in time, although it didn’t do you much good today.”

  Duilio felt his breath go short again. Did the Special Police know he was a seer? That couldn’t be good.

  “Then again,” the man added, “setting a fire isn’t acting directly against you, which would allow your gift to miss it. Probably why he chose that method rather than a direct confrontation this time.”

  “My gift?” Duilio asked.

  Gaspar’s smoky green eyes narrowed. “You’re a seer, although not a particularly strong one. I suspect your selkie blood limits your gift somehow.”

  His instinctive desire to take a swing at the man and run seemed a good idea now. Why was his gift not helping him? If Gaspar knew that Duilio was part selkie, then he had every right to drag Duilio down to the station and throw him in jail. But he hadn’t done so. And how did he know? The number of people who were aware of both those things was limited. “I imagine your superiors wouldn’t approve of your conversing with me if that were true.”

  Gaspar smiled mildly. “There are Special Police, and then there are Special Police. And then, Mr. Ferreira,” he added, “there are special Special Police.”

  While that answer didn’t precisely make sense, Duilio understood. Within any police body there were divisions. He’d not heard any rumor of such, but merely because the regular police hadn’t heard of this didn’t mean the Special Police weren’t at one another’s throats. “And what makes you think those things are true about me?”

  It was a dangerous question to ask, but at this point why not chance it?

  “I see it, Mr. Ferreira,” Gaspar said. “I look at people . . . and I know.”

  Duilio gazed at the man leaning against the stone wall. Did he correctly understand what Gaspar had just intimated?

  He’d met different kinds of witches throughout the past several years—not just seers, but healers who could still a man’s blood in his veins, witches who could lay a curse that lasted for decades. There were Truthsayers who could weigh a man’s words, and Finders who could locate things gone missing. There were a myriad of little talents, and skills benign enough that they didn’t have names. But this was something different, a rarity that supposedly appeared only once a generation. “You’re a Meter?”

  The inspector didn’t flinch. “Yes, Mr. Ferreira.”

  Meters were the stuff of legends. A Meter was a witch who could see what others were. Duilio wasn’t sure how far that talent extended, what Gaspar saw in him, but if Gaspar truly was a Meter, the Spanish Church would love to have him in their clutches. They still hunted witches in Spain, and Gaspar could simply point out each one on the street. “So, what are you doing here?” Duilio asked him. “Were you following me?”

  “What were you doing in that building?”

  Admittedly, Gaspar had revealed something of himself—clearly hoping to gain Duilio’s trust—but he was a member of the Special Police. Duilio couldn’t be sure where the man stood on anything, least of all investigation of The City Under the Sea. For all he knew, Gaspar had set that fire himself or was in league with the man who’d attacked him at the tavern. After all, his attacker had probably been a member of the Special Police. Duilio didn’t answer.

  Gaspar pushed away from the wall. “It would be helpful to me if I knew why Mata is hunting you, Mr. Ferreira. I understand your hesitation. I’m sure you understand mine.”

  Yes, he did. It was always a game of trying to figure out whom to trust.

  “You should go home, Mr. Ferreira,” Gaspar added, giving him a friendly pat on his shoulder. “You look a wreck.”

  Duilio shook his head ruefully. Yes, I certainly do.

  • • •

  Oriana needed to return the fabric scissors she’d borrowed from Felis, so she headed down to the servants’ workroom. Halfway down the back stairs, she almost collided with Mr. Ferreira coming up.

  She should have been warned by the smell. He carried the acrid scent of burned paper about him like a cloud. His coat was tucked under his arm, and she could see dried blood staining his shirtsleeve where he’d been injured the previous evening. His charcoal-gray waistcoat was liberally streaked with soot and ash. Even his shoes looked ruined. “Do you come home every evening like this, sir?” she asked, horrified.

  He laughed, apparently not as perturbed as
he should have been.

  Is this normal? “What happened?” she demanded. “Are you hurt?”

  Mr. Ferreira leaned against the newel post. “Someone walked into a room behind me and set it ablaze,” he said, sobering. “And the floor below that. I suspect it was the same gentleman from last night.”

  Who seemed likely to have been a member of the Special Police. “They certainly don’t want you proceeding with this investigation, do they?”

  He shrugged and then winced. “I’m beginning to have questions about that, Miss Paredes. I suspect my understanding of the Special Police might be insufficient to grasp what’s going on now.”

  What does that mean? “Are you hurt?” she asked again.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” he said dismissively, as if an attempt to burn him to death didn’t warrant concern. He began to search the pockets of his coat. “I went to investigate the place because we thought Espinoza might live there.”

  “Did he?”

  Mr. Ferreira tugged a leather-bound book out of one of the pockets. “Evidence suggests that he did but hasn’t been there for some time.”

  When he held out the book, Oriana took it. It was damp, the edges of the pages already beginning to curl. “And this is?”

  “A journal, likely his.”

  He certainly disliked stating absolutes. He qualified everything he said. She peered down at the leather-bound book more closely. It didn’t seem to have been damaged by the fire, but she was going to have to let it dry. “May I look through this?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid it got wet. Someone dumped a bucket of water on me. I thought you might be able to determine if there’s anything useful inside. Perhaps some hint where the man is holed up. It would be helpful if he names any of his compatriots, particularly in the Special Police. Or who’s paying for his work. That would be nice to know.”