Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman

by Duncan Eagleson

“Willa Devlin, sister to the Cap’n. She’s challenging the will.”

  “He willed the vessel to you?”

  “To his wife. She was to own and manage, and I’d captain for her. I’d have seen her well taken care of, and taken a share for my trouble. Then comes this fuckin’ bitch from Santa Brita, the Cap’s sister, contesting the will and suing for possession of the boat. As if she’d have any more idea what to do with her than a cabbage with a computer. Tied up in court it is, and the boat stuck in dock, impounded for the duration.” He raised his beer. “Willa Devlin, may she rot in Hell.”

  “Sorry to hear about your troubles,” Rok said. “And your captain’s death. I take it you liked him?”

  Here it comes, Don thought. The Railwalker hadn’t acted like a guardsman, though. When the guard started investigating the Cap’s killing, Don had been a suspect at first, and he’d had more than enough experience of the guard investigators’ approaches to questioning. This Railwalker Rok seemed like a regular guy.

  “He was a good man. A little queer in the head sometimes, but harmless for a’ that. He was Core Charger for the local Huey Brasse.”

  “You’re not a Huey man yourself? Being a seaman, I mean?”

  “No, I don’t believe in that stuff. O’ course, I’d join in when the Cap raised a toast and gave an offering to the Huey whenever we’d set out. Don’t hurt nothin’, and you never know. Just ’cause I don’t believe it, don’t make it not true.”

  Rok smiled. “I like a man with an open mind. How long were you with him?”

  “Oh, we went way back, the Cap and I. Good fifteen year or so. Easy-goin’ guy. Everybody liked him. You shoulda seen the funeral. There were more folks turned out... An’ not just ’cause of the way he died. No, it was the man himself brought them there. Y’know, even Micah Roth showed up.”

  “Did he? The city boss? He knew your Cap?”

  “Oh, not really, not that well, I guess. The Cap was with him in the Takeover, you see. Not that he was any big shot or nothin’, just another soldier fightin’ for freedom.”

  “Sounds like a splendid fella.”

  “Tell you somethin’ about the Cap,” Don said, drawing his stool closer to the newcomer and lowering his voice. “He told it me in confidence, one night when we got a bit drunk together, but it don’t reflect badly on him, by my lights, and he’s gone now anyway. It can’t hurt. I mean seein’ as how you’re a Railwalker and all, it’s practically like talkin’ to a priest, i’n’t it?” He swigged again at his beer, as Rok turned on his stool to face him. “I mean, I can trust you with a secret?”

  Rok just looked at him steadily, saying nothing.

  Don took Rok’s look as a rebuke, that he should ask such a question of a Railwalker. “My Cap,” he said, “was the man what killed Wendell Crichton. What do you think of that?”

  “Was he?”

  “Aye. And anybody else woulda been boastin’ and puffing themselves up about such a thing. Me, why I’d have been drinkin’ for free on a story like that the rest of my life. But not the Cap. No, he was actually ashamed of himself, that he shot first and didn’t try to capture the guy. Can you imagine? Kept it a secret all his life, until he told me. Just a few days before he died. Until then, nobody knew ’cept Cap himself. And then me. And now you, Railwalker. What d’ye think o’ that?”

  “That’s quite a story,” said Rok.

  17. BAY CITY

  Auden looked up from his desk screen when the woman Railwalker sat on the edge of his desk. Her pose, he thought, wasn’t provocative in a sexual sense, but it was arrogant.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “Hope so,” said Morgan. “Arnold Hawthorne, the Beast’s first victim. You were buds with him, right? You were at his fortieth birthday party at Bar of Gold. There’s a DV on his memorial page.”

  “What of it?” Auden said.

  “There’s nothing in any of the case files to show that. Isn’t that kind of unprofessional, working a case where you’ve got a personal interest without acknowledging that?”

  “I wasn’t assigned to the Hawthorne case. I came in on the Fitch case. Gage only made me OIC after Adams died, and Gage got promoted. What’s your point?”

  “We’d like to borrow the Ortiz pendant. The one from the Bay Queen.” Auden stared at her blankly. She scowled. “Look, even though you act like a dick, I figure you for one of the straight cops, more or less. So I’m guessing you figured there was no harm when after the forensics guys were done, you took the pendant from the boat as a memorial token of your pal. I mean, you couldn’t very well take Hawthorne’s own personal pendant. It was entered and logged in evidence. But who’d miss the one from the boat?”

  Auden sat back and regarded her, his eyes narrowing. He said nothing.

  She continued, “Now, as it happens, the Railwalkers come in and, surprise, things forensics found nothing on, we might be able to get something from.”

  “Things like the pendant,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Exactly. Look, I don’t need the extra hassle of going through official channels, which would probably mean charges against you. And I totally get wanting a token of a dead friend. So, here’s the deal. You loan us the pendant for a couple of days, we bring it back unharmed. Or,” she opened her portable comp and turned it toward him, “I can hit Enter on one of these two screens.”

  Auden looked from the screen to Morgan and back again. “Which will do what?”

  “One on the left will file an official inquiry into why you removed evidence from the scene without logging it. One on the right will make the record show that you brought the pendant in as additional evidence two weeks ago, and the Railwalkers checked it out last night.”

  He peered at the screen. “You hacked our system.”

  “I dunno as it’s hacking when you’ve officially been given access.”

  “I’ve officially got access, but I couldn’t do…” He looked back at the screen. “That.”

  “I’m good with computer systems. So, what’s it gonna be? You wanna go the hard way, the easy way, or the slightly deceptive easy way?”

  “Why would you fake back-dated records on my behalf?”

  “Duh. It took me all of thirty seconds to do. Flies, sugar, right? And you are kind of an insect. So what’s your choice?”

  He sat back again, lost in thought for a moment. “You say having this thing will lead you to the Beast?”

  “No guarantees. But it might help.”

  Auden opened one of his desk drawers and took out a brown paper envelope. “Let’s keep it all unofficial,” he said. He extended the envelope to Morgan. “Just get it back to me in one piece, okay?”

  Morgan shut the comp unit and took the envelope. “Deal.”

  ***

  Aguilar Cordoba sensed something was wrong as he fitted his key into the lock and opened the door to his apartment. It was a vague, non-specific feeling, which could have meant his toilet was backed up, or the rent check had bounced. Or it could have meant anti-mutant racists had set a bomb for him. He stepped in and was hit from the side. A heavy body bore him to the floor, one arm twisted up behind him in an iron grip. Aguilar was shocked, but not surprised. He had always known this day would come.

  “Gotcha!” shouted a voice in his ear. “Don’t move, asshole!”

  Aguilar twisted his head to look up and saw a big, bearlike man sitting at his dining room table. “What is this?” he rasped.

  “This is an investigation, Doctor,” said the seated man. “Or should I say ‘mutie’?”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah, fuck. See, we came across a strange thing today.” The man leaned forward in his seat and, despite his street clothes, Aguilar recognized him as one of the guardsmen who had visited him that morning. “You know every registered mutant has a file at City Plaza, right? Well, we looked at Aguilar Cordoba’s file, and guess what? You don’t look anything like your picture, Aguilar. You wanna explain that to me?”

  The mu
tant glared at the guardsman. “Not really.”

  “I don’t think you appreciate the grave nature of your predicament, Doc.” The big guardsman’s voice was companionable, almost chummy. “There are people out there who think the Beast is a shapeshifting mutie. Now, me, I don’t believe in shapeshifters, werewolves, zombies, any of that kind of shit. But I do believe in lynch mobs, and lynch mobs often do believe in that kind of thing. And a mob like that might think, a mutie like Aguilar Cordoba, how could he look like a guy like you, unless he was a shapeshifter? You see what I’m getting at?”

  The mutant sighed. “Pull my hair,” he said to the man holding him down.

  “Huh?” said Turrin.

  “Pull my hair,” the mutie demanded again.

  Turrin smiled, shook his head, and grabbed a handful of the curly brown locks. When he heaved back on them they came loose in his hand, revealing close-cropped hair as white as paper.

  “Wig,” Cordoba said. “Skin coloring. Contacts. It was my boss’s idea. He thought the patients at the clinic would feel more secure if they thought I was a normal.”

  Remming laughed. Cordoba shifted in Turrin’s grip. “There’s no law against it. I looked it up. We didn’t actually tell anyone I was a normal. We just let them come to their own conclusions. There are plenty of mutants who naturally look as normal as I do in this getup.”

  Remming stood. He nodded to Turrin, who let the doctor go. Cordoba remained lying on the floor as the two guardsmen walked to his front door.

  “It ain’t a crime,” Remming said from the doorway, “but it ain’t what I’d call exactly ethical, either. We’ll be watching, Cordoba.” He closed the door.

  On the street outside the apartment Dobbs watched as Remming and Turrin left the City Arms. They didn’t take him down, he thought. They made a deal, or he convinced them somehow that he was innocent. He put the runabout in gear and headed for the Bar of Gold.

  Walking to their own runabout, Remming and Turrin had already dismissed the subject of the mutie.

  “We gotta move,” said Remming. “The others should be at the Riverwalk by now. We don’t wanna miss the fun.” He had determined that the leader of the Railwalkers went for a run most evenings along the palisades of Riverwalk Park.

  “Karstairs, what the hell are you doing here?” asked Auden.

  Tom Karstairs glanced up from the dispatch desk, a quick, startled, nervous look.

  Auden’s personal radar went off. He knew that look. He’d seen it too many times on a suspect who’d been caught out at something.

  “Uh... Mattingly had something to do, so I switched with him.” The guardsman sipped from his coffee cup, then placed it on the desk between them.

  “What was it, some kind of last minute emergency?” Auden asked. He knew Karstairs hated working the desk; Mattingly must have come up with something good.

  “Uh, I dunno, exactly. He said it was something important, though.” Karstairs’s eyes shot to the left, and Auden’s suspicions increased. Karstairs was lying. He knew Karstairs didn’t actually like Mattingly much; the guy hung with Remming, Turrin, and Whaling. Auden didn’t care for them much himself. He couldn’t prove anything, but he had the feeling they were a little bent. Nothing big, probably. If he had to guess, he’d say they just took a few bucks now and then to look the other way on small-time shit, but the thought still rankled. If Mattingly had managed to pressure Karstairs into covering for him, something big had to be up. If it was something like a family emergency, why was Karstairs being all shifty about it?

  Auden leaned over the desk and got in Karstairs’s face. “If he’s up to something dirty, and you’re covering for him, I will personally nail your balls to the wall along with Mattingly and Turrin and anybody else involved,” he growled. “Now where the fuck is he?”

  Karstairs’s eyes went left, then right, then unfocused, obviously struggling with this. Finally he glanced up at Auden. “Okay, but you didn’t hear this from me, right?” Auden said nothing. Karstairs continued anyway, “You know they’re not happy about the Railwalkers being here...” He trailed off.

  “And those guys are out tonight for a game of badger in the bag, right? Think they’re gonna teach those Railwalkers a lesson?”

  Karstairs nodded. “Something like that, I think, yeah.”

  Stupid fucks, Auden thought. They’ll be lucky if they don’t get themselves killed. He’d have been happy enough seeing the Railwalkers taken down a peg, sure, but an assault on Boss Roth’s invited guests, on his watch, that wasn’t going to look good on his record. And if it came out that the perps were city guardsmen?

  “And where,” he said aloud, “is this lesson supposed to take place?” Even as he asked the question, the answer came to him: Riverwalk Park. Wolf, the Brick of the team, went for a solitary run there in the evenings when he could.

  “I... I dunno,” said Karstairs. Could have been another lie, but it didn’t matter. Auden moved past the desk and leaned in the door of the bullpen. Looked around to see who was there. “Robles! Holden! Evans!” he shouted. “With me. Right now. Full kit.” Without waiting for replies, he turned and stalked back past the desk. “I’ll want to talk to you later,” he said to Karstairs as he headed out the door.

  18. WOLF

  Guardsman Fitch had been a confirmed bachelor, with few friends outside of some of the guards and a couple of members of the local Soul-Areist Temple. It was easy to find the two guards who, according to Auden’s notes, were Fitch’s closest friends in the force, but like Auden they seemed resentful of my inquiries, and had little of value to add to what we already knew. Fitch had been a capable patrol guard, and not much more. He had no enemies anyone knew of, no particular ambitions other than to retire comfortably in a couple more years. During the Takeover he’d served as one of Roth’s bodyguard, but had had little contact with Roth since.

  The two Soul-Areists it took me a while to track down. One was a manager at a Thornhill department store, the other a laborer at a construction firm. While they weren’t resentful as the guards had been, they had little to offer that seemed useful. As I arrived later than I’d have liked at Riverwalk Park, I was feeling like my afternoon had been largely wasted, hoping Rok and Morgan had been more fortunate in their inquiries.

  From the top of Riverwalk Park you can see the bay. On clear nights, just before twilight, the setting sun lights up the bay with a blaze that goes gradually from white to golden to bronze. I could smell the river as I watched glimmerings of bronze recede toward the horizon, and I performed the Salute to the Setting Sun. Then I began stretching out.

  The Book of Arteology says: “A Railwalker does what is necessary to get the job done. A Railwalker is a good old boy, a righteous brother, a mensch. A Railwalker takes care of business. Every day.”

  It’s not the most popular passage with the women in the order, but they all have the attitude; they’re all whatever the female equivalents of those things are. What the hell, the Red Crow was a guy talking to other guys. Of course, there’s a common belief that there were female Railwalkers before the time of Brick. Some of the Apocrypha include stories of them. The Canon, as they call it, the basic texts of the order, were written by the First Five, the Ravens who gathered around Brick at the time of the Great Crash. Except for Skywriter, they were all men. Wasn’t like they’d planned it that way; it’s just how it happened. But they did initiate other women into the order, and most Railwalkers take most of the Apocrypha as seriously as they do the Canon.

  Anyway, that passage always seemed important to me. Most of the time I can take care of business just fine. But every now and then, I get to thinking.

  You read the tales, the stories of ancient Railwalkers, it’s like watching viddiscs or reading paps. High adventure, vanquishing monsters, rescuing innocents, all that kind of thing. But the truth is, those things are only exciting and fun when you’re reading about ’em or watching ’em and they’re happening on a screen. I can tell you from experience, having a bun
ch of people out to kill you, or confronting a monster in its lair, is not fun. Exciting, yeah, sure; you’re on the edge, dancing with the whirlwind, splashing through Chaos. You live more intensely at those moments than at any other, and some people get addicted to that. But it’s not fun, not really. In fact, in some respects, it really sucks.

  As the sky turned to purple, I finished my stretching and set out on my run. I wasn’t looking forward to the unfolding of this next piece of badness. Wanting to get it over with, yeah, but not looking forward to what that would entail. I knew I was probably going to have to face a monster. What I didn’t expect was a bunch of people out to kill me.

  The first fucker came out of the bushes to my right and very nearly clotheslined me. He was almost fast enough. There was no stopping, so I basically clotheslined on my own a nanosecond before impact and spun at the same time, turning it into a flying kick. He went down. I alit on toes and fingers, scanned... Three more coming at me. I moved to meet them.

  They had some kind of training, I’ll give them that. Rok’s better than I am at hand-to-hand. He probably would have taken them down faster and more efficiently, but I did alright. The wide guy in front of me on the path was the more serious threat. Weasel and Schlub coming up behind me were followers; Wide Guy was a leader, dark-haired, bullet-headed, with a look of determination about him. I ducked under his left and jabbed to his ribs as I stepped forward to pivot, putting him between me and the others. The Clothesliner was starting to stir now. Wide Guy came at me again, fast, and I dodged and got in a kick to his midsection that doubled him over, followed by one to the head that put him down. Weasel almost tripped over him, to recover himself and receive a kick that sent him sprawling. Schlub moved in, not fast, but big and beefy, hulking, strong, though not skilled. I broke his nose and one leg. The Clothesliner was now headed toward me, and Wide Guy was stirring. I kicked WG again and turned to meet the Clothesliner, when my head exploded. Either that, or some giant with one of those huge clubs with the big spike on the end had buried it in my temple.