The Walls of Orion

by T. D. Fox

  Jasper sighed. A new kind of tension appeared in his shoulders. “The deeper I dig, the weirder stuff I come up with.”

  “Are you allowed to talk about it?”

  “Nobody on the force wants to hear about this case, so I’m treating you like a consultant. You’re already sort of involved anyway. I’m technically still inside the rules.”

  She tried to give him a smile, but the disquiet behind his blue eyes made her uneasy. “What’d you find?”

  “You know how you said your shop’s cameras were too blurry to pick up a face for our recognition systems? Well, they weren’t. We ran the shooter’s facial structure through the system, checked for matches, and found a hit.”

  Courtney waited. “That’s good, right? A lead in the case.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Someone killed him after the shooting?”

  “He’s been dead a year.”

  Courtney watched his face, waiting for some sign of... well, anything. For the first time, she couldn’t read him like a book. “How could he be dead for a year? Maybe the facial scanners matched the wrong guy.”

  Jasper watched her, as if debating something. Finally, he pulled out a glowing pad from under the table. He tapped a code onto the screen and held it up for her.

  “Is this the guy you saw?”

  Courtney stared at the mug shot. The unmasked man from the café stared back, dark eyes as clear as they’d been three weeks ago. A little date in the corner read November 28 of last year.

  “His name is David Wiles. Got arrested for a mugging twelve months ago, but got out on bail. They found his body in an alley two days later.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Courtney said. “Cameras can make mistakes, but I remember every detail of his face. That’s the same guy.”

  “I know. That’s what I’m saying.” Jasper put the pad away. “It’s the same man, but he’s been dead for twelve months.”

  “How? Could he have a twin or something?”

  “I checked him out. His only sibling is a sister.”

  “Then... how?”

  “I showed this to the commissioner, and he thinks it’s just a case of identity theft. Or the store’s cameras were faulty.”

  “My eyes aren’t faulty! I remember his face.”

  “I didn’t want to show you, I’m sorry, but I had to know. It is the same man. Which makes this case ridiculously more complicated.”

  “Complicated? It makes this case impossible.”

  Jasper shook his head, dropping his eyes from hers. A sliver of frustration showed again, his guard flattening. Something else appeared behind his gaze.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “Only if you want to hear it.” He ran a hand through his hair, looking weary and excited at the same time. “My colleagues won’t listen to me. They’re all exhausted with this case; so many killers loose in the city all pretending to be one, it’s like chasing rats in a sewer. There’s no winning.” He hesitated. “I shouldn’t pull you into this. You’ve already got nightmares.”

  “Who’s got nightmares?” Courtney leaned across the table. “You said I’m already involved. Two heads are better than one.”

  “I’ve been working this case since I got here. I don’t think we’ll solve it in a night.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.” Courtney placed a hand over his. “You said nobody’s listening to you. Here I am to listen. You don’t have to carry this by yourself.”

  The busy street hummed around them, hawkers selling their handmade wares from across the square. The light had dimmed, twilight falling; the lanterns up and down the street began to glow. Courtney waited, his hand warm under hers, until he sighed.

  “It just gets weirder,” he said. “I don’t have any answers.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “We did catch the two men leaving on the CCTV. The masked guy we lost track of in a back alley—a lot of guys know just where to dodge the cameras. But our main man, the shooter, stayed in range of the cameras. It was like he didn’t care. We got a blurry video of him going into a phone booth. One of those old-fashioned ones on ninth street. Tiny little box, you know, no way it could fit more than one person.”

  “I’ve seen them.”

  “He disappears in there for a couple minutes. I thought maybe he was making a phone call. You remember it snowed that week? The windows were too powdered up to make out much of anything inside. But then the door opened, and a different guy walked out.”

  “A different guy?”

  “Same coat, same shoes, everything. The cameras don’t lie, I checked them four times for tampering. Our guy goes in, a blond guy comes out. Ten inches shorter, completely different race. Right after he strolls out, the police cars race right past him toward the coffee shop.”

  Courtney realized he was watching her, waiting for a reaction. She didn’t feel like she had one. It was all too bizarre to sound real. “You don’t have any theories?”

  “Sane ones? No. But...” Jasper pulled out the pad again and brought up a new picture. He slid it toward her. “This is a map of the city’s sewer system. The tunnels go everywhere, under every district. If someone were to use these, they could go anywhere. Disappear anywhere.”

  “What does that have to do with a phone booth?”

  “Maybe this crime syndicate, the ones who created this super-killer the Whistler, have been creating new entrances to the tunnels. It’s how they’ve been getting away from us so quickly. We’ve almost had them cornered a dozen times, and they’ll vanish before we kick down the door. There could be a secret entry point beneath the phone box, a trapdoor, or... or something.”

  Courtney immediately put her face in check, shame filling her when she saw Jasper’s expression fall. “You think I’m nuts, too,” he said.

  “No!”

  “What other logical explanation is there for a man who walks into a box and walks back out a different man?”

  “Did you check underneath the phone box for any signs of a secret tunnel?”

  “Yes.” Jasper’s face fell further. “It’s solid cement.”

  “Maybe someone ran back over and filled it in, after they used it once.”

  “Why on earth would they do that? They’d have to know we caught them on camera.”

  Courtney hesitated. “What do the other detectives think of this one?”

  “I haven’t told them. It sounds crazy enough when I tell you, think of how it’ll sound to guys who already think I’m an idiot.”

  “Nobody would believe you?”

  “Oliver does. He’s actually helping me track down more leads. He sees things other people don’t, knows how to ask the right questions without turning heads. There are places I can’t go as a cop. He’s the perfect street source for this case.”

  “What has he come up with?”

  Jasper leaned in further, lowering his voice even though no one around them was speaking English. Courtney found herself leaning in too. “An even crazier theory,” he said. “I’m questioning my own sanity that I even believe him. But the evidence is starting to point toward his explanation.”

  “Which is?”

  Jasper opened his mouth—and, down the street, a person screamed.

  They both jerked upright. The market around them began to stir. At the next table over, a man stood and looked over their heads down the busy street. He turned and snapped something at a woman serving food. She shook her head with wide eyes.

  Jasper turned and craned his neck toward the street. “What was—”

  Another scream rent the air, shriller and more desperate. Two more followed, different voices. Down the street, a commotion was building. Courtney could see until the end of the block where the town square opened out. A crowd was clumping up around something. People were pushing and shoving—trying to get away, or trying to get closer, or both.

  “Let’s go.” Courtney stood without thinking, almost knocking over the tiny table.
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  “What? Toward it?”

  “Yes!” She was already out of the little dining strip and heading for the street. Dishes clattered behind her.

  “Hold it.” Jasper grabbed her arm. “You’re not a cop, let me handle this.”

  “They’re not either!” Falling in with the other civilians running toward the scene, she tugged him with her.

  “Courtney, wait!”

  People clogged between them, some running away from the screams, and others—like herself—heading toward them. She slipped out of Jasper’s grasp and grabbed him by the hand instead. Pulling him along, she ducked and weaved through the crowd, heading for Chinatown square.

  The screams thickened as they neared. As did the crowd. Up ahead, a clearing had opened in the middle of the square. People clamored back like someone had drawn a line on the cobblestones.

  Through the shifting crunch of bodies, she spotted something moving, on the ground a few paces ahead. A boy, a skinny teen, huddled with his arms over his head. He was convulsing.

  “Somebody call a doctor!” she blurted. She started to move forward, but Jasper’s arm clamped like an iron around her waist.

  “Don’t.”

  “What are you—?” She twisted in his grip. “We have to help, that’s a kid!”

  He yanked her back. “Don’t get any clos—”

  A bone-shuddering snarl ripped the air. Courtney spun back toward the boy on the ground.

  Only it wasn’t a boy.

  A writhing shape contorted, growing bigger, jeans and clothing tearing away. The boy was gone. In his place crouched a creature—a beast twice his size, with glinting teeth and strange mottled fur that blinked and shifted in the shadows. Huge paws splayed against the cobblestones. A terrifying growl rumbled across the square.

  What in the holy...

  The crowd pressed in again, blocking her vision. She stumbled back into Jasper. More bodies squeezed in around them, so he was forced to step back, loosening his grip. She ducked out of his hold and dove through the crowd.

  “Courtney! Stay back!”

  She went down, peering through a gap in the crowd of legs. The shape on the ground was now a tangled mass of ropes and spotted fur. Jasper called out for her again. She wriggled past the squish of bodies and stood again, in a place clear enough to see.

  A jaguar.

  Courtney shrieked when a net came out of nowhere, flying across the square with a bang like a gunshot. Four weighted balls skittered on the stone. The creature flattened itself to the ground, ears low and eyes narrowed. Black lips pulled back over three-inch fangs.

  Another net exploded from the shadows. This one caught the creature straight-on, webbing it to the ground. It coiled sideways and started to thrash.

  “Back!” someone screeched. “I said, everybody back!”

  The crowd stumbled backward, feet tripping over other feet. Someone stomped on her shoe and Courtney stumbled, catching herself on a stranger’s arm. The man threw her off of him into another person’s elbow.

  “Courtney!” Jasper yelled, from a greater distance this time.

  She caught her balance. Twisting back to the clearing, she saw a squad of white-clad men shoving their way through the crowd. Toward the shape on the ground—which was now a tangled mass of ropes and limbs. The shape within the nets morphed. Writhed. For a split second, she saw what almost looked like the huddled form of a teenage boy, cowering under the net. But she blinked, and he was gone. An unrecognizable shape twisted back into a pattern of spots.

  “Back away!”

  She had just enough time to see the pinned creature wriggle back, snarling, when another white shape blocked her view.

  “Get back!” A man pushed out in front of her. He raised what looked like a nightstick. The club swooshed through the air, smacking a guy on the arm. The poor bystander stumbled back, crying out in Chinese. The crowd around him recoiled.

  “I said get back! I won’t ask again!”

  An engine rumbled. Courtney strained on her toes to see a van roaring into the square. Pedestrians dove out of the way. It screeched to a stop inside the clearing. The white paneled doors flew open, and four men in gray jumpsuits leapt out.

  “Back!” Someone smashed their way into the throng, club first. The White Coat raised his nightstick and bellowed in Mandarin: “Hue lai! Now!”

  Courtney fought to keep clear of the crowd pressing backward, but they were carrying her with them. She could still see part of the clearing. The men in gray suits strode toward the writhing mass of ropes, each one holding a strange black gun.

  “No!” someone screamed. A woman, in English. “Please, he’s my son!”

  “Xianzai! Get back!”

  Courtney watched in horror as the man lifted the gun. He fired once, twice. Two quick bursts that made no sound. The crowd closed again, so she couldn’t see the shape on the ground. But she saw the men move toward it. They stooped, like they were going to drag it.

  “Tingzhi!” A small woman dove through the crowd. She clawed her way past the man with the club and threw herself at the armed men. “Stop!” she screeched. “Don’t take him!”

  Another White Coat grabbed her by the arm. He yanked her back with so much force it jerked her straight off her feet.

  “Hey!” a voice boomed, just above Courtney’s head. She looked up to see Jasper shoving past her, shouldering his way toward the clearing.

  “Get back,” the man in white yelled. “Or we’ll arrest you.”

  “I’m a cop,” he fired back. “Let that woman go!”

  Holding the woman with one arm, the man reached into his coat and pulled out a badge. “This is outside your jurisdiction,” he said. “Either help us keep these people back, or get out of here.”

  Jasper took an angry step forward.

  A shrill scream—from the other side of the clearing—made everyone turn. Across the square, the crowd scattered like someone had kicked a bee’s nest. Through the gaps between pounding feet, Courtney glimpsed a man on the ground. A White Coat, facedown, unmoving. There was something sticking out of his back, crimson leaking through the white.

  A faint whistle, like a blade in the air, zipped across the clearing. The man trying to drag the netted bundle toward the van dropped like a stone. He twitched on the cobblestones, and went still.

  With a jerk, the White Coat released the woman and sprinted for the van. From the vehicle, two more men in gray suits emerged. One hollered something into a handheld. They rushed forward and took the fallen man’s place, gripping the net alongside the other gun-toters. They hauled it toward the van.

  The shape inside was no longer moving. Courtney could see it now. A jaguar’s head showed between the netting, bumping and rocking over the cobblestones. Its mouth hung fixed in a snarl, eyes half open.

  Another knife streaked through the air. A second gray-suited man fell, almost to the van, while his team kept moving. They heaved the bundle into the van, then grabbed their fallen partner and hefted him inside with them, slamming the doors.

  The van’s tires squelched. Fishtailing, it rumbled out of the square, forcing citizens to dive out of the way as it exited.

  As if on cue, a siren wailed.

  Courtney felt a hand at her waist, and spun to see Jasper there. Behind them, the sirens grew louder.

  “Who are they?” she demanded. “Where are they taking that boy?”

  “Boy?” Jasper shouted over the sirens. “What boy?”

  Courtney turned back to where the van had disappeared. Behind it, the crowd closed again, people coughing and shouting in rapid Chinese. She caught some English words mixed in. Bodies. Mauling. Jaguar. Changer.

  Mauling? Didn’t they see it with their own eyes? The jaguar hadn’t killed anyone; that body on the ground had a knife wound.

  She strained her eyes to see if there were any White Coats left. So many people had clumped around the two bodies on the ground, she couldn’t see them anymore. She scanned the crowd. Her eyes landed o
n a familiar face.

  He was looking away, bending down to help someone who’d been knocked to the ground. He wasn’t wearing his usual long dark coat, so at first she didn’t recognize him. But when he straightened up, the fading sun caught his sharp profile. He turned to look down the alley where the van had disappeared.

  The look on his face startled her. It burned with a feral rage.

  “Courtney, let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait, there’s someone I...”

  She’d turned her head for a second to Jasper’s voice. That was all it took. When she looked back, W was gone.

  “I can go to the station and look into this,” Jasper said. “Come on, this crowd is unstable. I’ll tell you everything I know. Let’s go.”

  Courtney strained on tiptoe to see over the crowd. W was a head taller than everybody else; she should’ve been able to find him.

  But there wasn’t a trace of him across the clearing.

  13. WHEN IT SOUNDS THIS CRAZY...

  “YOU HAVE GOT to look at this.”

  “Dina, I don’t have—hey.” Courtney shoved the phone out of her face. “I’m waiting for Jasper to call.”

  She perched on the edge of the couch in her tiny living room, where she’d been hovering for the last twenty minutes. Dina had arrived an hour before. After her phone exploded with four dozen texts about the news’ reports of a riot in Chinatown, Courtney had come home to find her friend waiting. For once Dina wasn’t interested in a run-down of the date.

  “Boyfriends can wait.” Dina plopped onto the couch next to her. “This video just went up, and you’d better look at it before the Orion City Buzzkills take it down.”

  She held the phone up again. The video was already playing. Courtney watched through the eyes of a wobbly camera as a van sped down a narrow street, blank white panels blurring in and out of focus.

  “That’s the van you saw, right?” Dina said. “Wait for it.”

  Heavy breathing crackled behind the camera. The van brakes squealed as it tried to turn a corner. Out of the dark, four shapes leapt out and stuck to the van like taffy. A huge arm—massive, hairy, larger than any man’s—snapped out from one of the shadows. The van teetered sideways.