Bone Song

by John Meaney

  A gray cat padded toward her.

  “Hey,” Laura murmured.

  The cat's eyes glowed scarlet.

  “Will you sit with me for a while?” she added.

  Silence, then:

  +Yes, I will.+

  The cat sat next to her, blinking its shining scarlet eyes.

  Across the human- and wraith-built canyon that was the street, Laura's dark-adapted sight focused on the opposing towers and the narrow spars of stone that linked them: channels for necrotonic cabling as well as phone lines.

  No person could traverse within the spars—the internal spaces were too narrow—but wraiths could, and did, flow along the wires from building to building as required. And, externally, if they chose to risk the turbulent winds that battered the heights, other creatures might walk (or occasionally slither) atop the stone spars, crossing the spaces and the vast drop below.

  Now, on other rooftops, pairs of scarlet eyes blinked, feline and knowing, at Laura sitting at the base of Darksan Tower's spire, staring into the night.

  The night to which she belonged.

  Donal slipped back into wakefulness. It was morning, but very early. He padded into the bathroom, drank musty water from the faucet, then left it running. A second glass, after a few minutes, tasted fresher.

  No sign of Laura.

  He went back to the small stack of cardboard boxes, searched inside, and pulled out his old jump rope. The cord was black and slick and shiny with age: a narrow length of manticore gut, well worn.

  Dressed only in his shorts, Donal skipped slowly, beginning with the simple two-footed jump, then alternating feet. He interspersed the steady rhythm with bursts of high-speed footwork. His old boxing coach would have been proud.

  It was half an hour later, with Donal just about to finish up, when Laura walked into the bedroom, fully clothed. She was wearing one of her severe skirt suits, this one navy with matching high heels. Her iridescent lipstick shone as blue as the cloth.

  “I see you're fit enough,” she said.

  “Fit for anything”—Donal whipped the rope around himself fast, spectacularly, then tossed it onto the bed—“you'd care to attempt with me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I feel much better now.”

  “No.”

  Donal let out a long breath.

  “I'm . . .”

  No. He would not apologize.

  Do you feel the—

  All the damn time.

  Donal wanted to tell her that he loved her, even as the rational part of his mind yelled that it was a hangover from ensorcellment, a rewiring of his basic animal drives.

  “We don't need to talk about it.”

  “No,” he said.

  They stared at each other.

  Do—

  And swallowed.

  Laura unbuttoned her jacket and blouse, took hold of his right hand, and cupped it against the black lace of her bra, covering her heart. “Do you feel the black pump . . . slithering . . . inside me?”

  “Yeah.” Donal closed his eyes and shivered. “Yeah, I feel it.”

  “Oh, Thanatos.”

  They pulled each other into a unifying embrace, as though every cell in their bodies was sucked toward the joint organism they formed together, as though they could be one single being, filled with the joy of lust and love, sweaty and salty mingling fluids. And then he was pulling off her clothes and his shorts were off, yet there was a gentleness here, not the rapid urgency of last night.

  It was deeper and far more satisfying, and they cried aloud and laughed as they came: once, twice, and a third time. They lay back naked atop the tossed silver sheets and laughed again, soft and satisfied.

  “Well,” said Laura. “I guess we've done it now.”

  “I guess we have. You're seducing a minion, and I'm—”

  “—involved with a nonperson, at least by Senator Blanz's criteria.”

  “Fat lot that bastard knows.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Is it always going to be like this?” Laura said.

  Donal shook his head. “I don't know anything.”

  “Me either.”

  He could guess at the origin of the desire sweeping through him. But why would Laura feel that attraction to him?

  I don't know.

  But he knew that she did feel it, that was the thing.

  Donal propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her, tracking his fingertips along her cool and flawless skin. Her icy nipples peaked and crinkled at his touch.

  “So why are you on the senator's case, Laura? Why is Blanz your enemy?”

  “Besides the obvious? I didn't say he was my enemy.” Laura's lips curved, and she raised her head up to kiss him, then lay back. “Of course he is—I just didn't say so. He's the enemy of all my kind, mine and Xalia's.”

  “Xalia's a smartwraith. That's hardly in the same category as you—”

  “You think she's less than human, then?”

  “No, I don't. How can you ask that?”

  Laura shook her head, her blond hair swirling across the silvery satin pillows. “Sorry, I'm still not used to . . . The world's not supposed to change in an instant.”

  “Yeah, but it can.”

  And had she known this would happen? Had she planned it?

  I don't care.

  “Right.” Laura rolled herself up to a sitting position and checked the angular needle hands twisting into position on the bedside table, indicating the time: 11:07. “Death, do you have any idea how late we are?”

  “Yeah. We'd better travel to HQ separately.”

  “No.”

  “Or you can drop me off maybe five blocks away, somewhere discreet. I can pick up some take-out coffees. Anything has to be better than the muck that Viktor makes.”

  “I don't think so.”

  “You can't like Viktor's coffee. Tell me you don't.”

  “I've never tasted it,” said Laura. “Never felt the need. And I don't feel the need to disown you either.”

  She touched her fingertips against his chest, and for a moment a hint of steam played around her fingertips and evaporated.

  “Er . . . I don't hurt you, do I?” Donal realized consciously for the first time how different his body temperature was from hers. “I mean, my skin doesn't burn you, does it?”

  “Yeah. But not in a bad way.”

  “You said”—Donal responded to her kisses, blood leaping back into his manhood—“we're late for work, remember?”

  “Mmm. Lucky I'm the boss.”

  They slid together, forming one being once more.

  “Lucky, lucky . . .”

  And they headed for the novaburst that awaited them.

  * * *

  Laura drove the Vixen, which seemed ideally suited to her. Even the crescent-shaped steering wheel was fitted to her exactly, as if she could steer the car through massive turns with the tiniest fingertip pressure.

  They slid through the half-busy streets, enjoying the respite from rush-hour traffic. Only near police HQ did the cars grow packed together, and then Laura used her Vixen's black-strobe light—bands of shadow flitting across the street as the siren moaned. Pedestrians retreated as Laura eased one tire up onto the sidewalk and drove along the edge of the street.

  At the cross junction the lights were red, but the drivers had seen the strobe, and everyone pulled to a halt as Laura's car streamed through.

  “I want you to take the diva trail,” she said, hauling the car into a right turn across three lanes of traffic, ignoring the horns. “All right?”

  Steel doors carved with dragons' heads slid apart to either side at the Vixen's approach—moving improbably fast for such massive constructs.

  “That's like, what, some kind of cross-country hiking route?” Donal forced his hands to relax—he'd been about to tense them into fists—as they swung past carved stone pillars that bore brooding, stylized eagles' heads. “Or what?”

  “If the trail
takes you across the country, then that's what it does.” The tires screeched and howled as Laura pulled the Vixen through another tight, fast turn, startling a uniformed chauffeur who was starting up his big armored limo. “But I was thinking of paper trails, the boring, unglamorous kind.”

  “What about the diva?” Donal was amazed there was no pain left when he said her name, or rather her title. Donal was only now realizing: he hadn't known Maria daLivnova at all.

  And how little that mattered now.

  “Malfax Cortindo,” Laura said, slowing the car at last, wheeling past bronze pillars and descending a long red metal ramp that led into a bowl-shape parking area.

  The parking spaces were arranged radially as tear-shape depressions in the floor, like a potter's marks in clay, and three of them were occupied with rich-looking empty cars.

  “You'll need the paper trail there. See why Alderman Finross was so keen to send you to him in the first place.”

  “You don't want me to talk to Finross.”

  “Not yet, Donal. Let's not reveal our thinking at this stage. The bastard probably thinks he's gotten away with everything—and I'm not even sure what he is guilty of. I think he might have brokered a deal. . . . I don't know.”

  “Cortindo was a middleman.” The Vixen rolled to a halt, and Donal closed his eyes and let out a gentle breath, then opened his eyes again. “But that doesn't rule out your theory on Finross—one man brokering a deal with another broker, two layers of indirection between the crime and whoever paid for it to happen.”

  “Hmm. Like I said, that's your job.” Laura leaned over to kiss him, then winked and pushed open the door, stepping out with one foot. “Come on, Lieutenant, we're not hanging around here.”

  Donal gave a crooked half smile and exited. As he stood on the hard parking garage floor, the door pulled itself from his grasp and swung itself shut. It locked with a loud click.

  “Er . . .” He hadn't realized the Vixen was wraith-enabled.

  “Don't worry about it. She's quite tame.” Laura patted the already-shut driver's door. “Aren't you, dear sis?”

  “What?”

  Laura shrugged. “A story for another time. But we're only half sisters, so it's not as strange as you might imagine.”

  Thanatos.

  Life really had taken a sudden swerving turn for Donal. But there were richly suited men accompanied by overdressed wives heading for the trio of silver limousines nearby. Donal kept his thoughts to himself as he and Laura walked past.

  “We're not in HQ yet,” he said instead, staring up at the curved red-brown ceiling with bas-relief designs of what looked like smiling parrots. “Which building is this? The Redburn Center?”

  “Yeah, you got it. The Five Seasons is two hundred floors up, if you want to eat dinner with senators and aldermen and similar fauna from the fish tank of local politics.”

  “Nice description. I don't think they'd let me in.” Donal walked alongside Laura, shoulder close to her but not holding hands. “Not with my suits and ties.”

  “You're probably more welcome in there than I am. And I'd be happy to take you there once for the experience, you know?”

  In his mind's eye, Donal imagined some portly maître d' attempting to stop Laura from entering his restaurant, and her iron reply: “What's the matter, haven't you ever served a zombie before?”

  They walked past the entrance to the upper levels and continued along the silver-and-white tunnel marked Deepway Fast 17. Secondary notices bore a list of buildings it linked to, including police HQ.

  There were shops and small eateries, but the prices behind the counter were enough to make Donal wince.

  “I guess I'm moving in new circles now.”

  “Huh.” Laura shook her head. “Not much of a social circle, hooking up with me.”

  “Is that what we've done? Hooked up?”

  They walked on in silence. Donal wanted to hold her hand but knew he should not—Laura was a senior officer, and he was on her team, and that was it.

  At the silvery subterranean entranceway to HQ they stopped. An openmouthed wolf formed the design, some thirty feet high, the upper fangs raised above their heads, and the long tongue forming a ramp.

  Donal nodded to the real deathwolves stationed on either side.

  “Hey.” He moved slowly, pulling out his wallet and flipping it open to reveal his badge. “Riordan.”

  “Don't know . . . you.” The deathwolf on Donal's left raised its head and focused its amber eyes on his face. “Lieutenant.”

  “FenSeven is my friend.” Donal held up his hand and allowed any microscopic residual scent to waft into the warm air. “Can you tell?”

  “Ah. Yes-s-s.”

  The other deathwolf was already staring at Laura. She looked back at it in silent exchange. Then the deathwolf growled, ducked its head, and padded away inside the building. When it came back, two more deathwolves accompanied it.

  “This is Donal.” Laura nodded toward Donal, then to each deathwolf in turn. “He's my—”

  “Mate.” The biggest wolf, old and silver gray, pulled back its—her—upper lip in a lupine laugh. “We know.”

  Then the pack parted, two to each side, and watched as Donal and Laura entered the building. It was oddly ceremonial.

  He dared not look at Laura.

  Seconds later, they were ascending in an elevator shaft—not Gertie's—headed for another day at the office.

  Donal felt an odd thrill—except that it seemed not so strange, given the sudden shifts in his life. It was that familiar start-of-semester sensation, that feeling of entering another year, another adventure. They walked through the team room together, heading for Laura's office.

  Viktor was seated at a desk, his fingers encased in wire claw gloves as he wrestled with a compositor framework, like a 3-D abacus, harder to use than a typewriter. A pale woman whom Donal did not know appeared, her eyes serious.

  “Alexa,” said Laura. “I want to introduce you to—”

  “It's Sushana,” the woman, Alexa, said. “No one's seen her for thirteen days. Last night she was supposed to meet her cousin and never turned up.”

  “Shit.” Laura looked away. “Shit.”

  “We're backtracking, as quietly as possible, but you know how hard it is.”

  Donal looked from one to the other. “What was she doing?”

  “Undercover sorcerer,” said Alexa. Then, when Laura did not intervene to prevent further explanation: “It was a mixed coven, thirty-seven acolytes, meeting over a used-tire garage uptown. Rumors were that Sally C—Sally the Claw—funded the place.”

  “The coven or the garage?”

  “Both. You know of Sally?”

  “I met his brother Al once. Al Clausewitz.”

  Alexa blinked slowly. “I didn't know Sally had a brother.”

  Donal waited a beat.

  “He doesn't,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  Laura's cold lips tightened in a smile. “You're the right man for the job, I think.”

  “Tracking down this Sushana?”

  “What about Harald?” said Alexa. “If he gets his network looking for Sushana, she'll turn up. One way or the . . . other.”

  “Look, she's undercover,” said Laura. “Once Harald's tame pimps and fortune-tellers start spreading the word, they'll know we're taking a special interest in Sushana. If they think she's a made woman from Selvikin City, like her cover story says, then no harm done. But if they think she's a snitch . . .”

  “Or that she's a cop.” Donal shrugged. “She's dead either way.”

  “The missed meeting is one day old,” said Alexa, “but it's thirteen days since anyone's seen her.”

  Laura said nothing for a moment. Donal knew what he would do, and he'd suggest it if Laura asked.

  “Do it,” Laura said then. “Get everything going that you can. Any hint of someone who knows Sushana, if we don't already know the person, we snatch 'em and sweat 'em.”

  Alexa whirled away,
back to her desk, and ripped the phone from its hook.

  “That's a go,” she said, and slammed the handset down. Then she looked up at Laura and gave a bright girlish smile. “I had it all arranged, because I thought you'd say that.”

  “I hate being predictable.”

  “Remind me to introduce you to my pal Levison sometime,” Donal said to Alexa.

  But the humor was a coping mechanism, no more. A missing undercover cop, on the first full day that Donal was on the team . . .

  Luckily he didn't believe in omens.

  Do you hear the—

  Oh, for Death's sake, not now.

  The task force sent their contacts, their snitches and sympathizers, their paid informants and the weaklings they threatened, searching the unofficial labyrinths that defined the city for Sergeant Sushana O'Connor—or, rather, Sorceress Shara Conrahl, who had expressed such an interest in exploring the darker sides of her professed art.

  That night, Laura remained in the office, coordinating. Donal's eyes were drooping, and she finally said he should go home. There were cots he could have used, but that seemed more conspicuous in terms of staying here all night with Laura.

  Finally, he gave up and did what she suggested. He descended to ground level, where he chatted with FenSeven for ten minutes until the purple cab arrived.

  The streets were empty and it took little time to reach home. His new home.

  Darksan Tower's guardians were eight-foot behemoths with single slit eyes, who stood aside to allow Donal entry. An elevator whisked him up to the apartment, where he wandered around its metallic Gothic–deco spaces before collapsing into bed.

  Dark dreams enveloped him.

  Donal woke late, a sign that he was not yet fully recovered. He changed into his old running suit and took the elevator down to the basement levels. A maintenance worker with grease-stained skin and two wraiths hovering behind him showed Donal how to access the deep stairwells that led into the catacombs.

  He ran along routes that were unfamiliar to him, the length of twisting long-abandoned ways. Then he was in a cavernous area where newer family mausoleums, some of polished brass and silver, were ringed with pale amber lanterns. Running on, he finally entered a region that he knew, and he grew certain that he was not imagining it.