by John Meaney
“—for a dumb cop,” Harald finished for him. “Thank you so much.”
Inside, Harald stepped through the ectoplasmic curtain that filled the hallway—it slid wetly across his skin—and then he was inside a corridor furnished in red and black. Tiny flamesprites danced in niches along the walls.
To Harald's right, an archway opened onto the dark interior of the club. Blue-lit booths were sparsely occupied by middle-aged men and their paid companions, some of whom were ordinary humans: the See-Through Look 'n' Feel catered to a range of clientele.
There were three wraiths dancing on the bar, their lower extremities just inside the top of the counter, swaying to the too-loud music. One of them looked over toward Harald, the darkness where her eyes should have been now focusing on him. She gave a slow wink as she danced.
She nodded slightly toward the rear of the building, as if she knew what Harald was here for: to take down Deltrassol. It confirmed what Stone had already said, and Harald tipped his forehead to give a fingertip salute before continuing along the red-lit hallway.
Reversed words crawled across the far wall, with Harald's shadow blotting out the center. The light came from the shining sign that floated behind him. Moving to one side so his silhouette would not show, Harald advanced with crosswise steps along the hallway.
At the entrance to the rear lounge, Harald checked inside, in case his target was not where Stone thought or there was other trouble. The Tiplog brothers were here, their backs to Harald, and he made a mental note to find out later what they were up to. No one else of interest.
So he went back into the hallway and crossed to the staircase, where two burning wraiths drew aside. One of them opened her mouth to reveal teeth of yellow flames.
Harald ignored them as he began his ascent. The carpet on the treads was sticky and blackened with dirt. Having got this far, the club's patrons no longer needed the illusory glamour that decorated the bar and lounges: a haze of lust obscured the tacky reality, the faded scents of despair and old semen.
The top corridor was floored with bare boards. Paint peeled from flimsy doors; rhythmic groans came from behind two of them. Harald drew his gun. He would kick in each door in turn, regardless of who might be inside.
But one of the wraiths rose up through the floor, anticipating the damage Harald was likely to cause, and pointed at the end door. She hung in the air until Harald nodded. Then she floated downward and out of sight.
Harald moved fast.
Floorboards creaked beneath his weight, but not in time to warn Deltrassol, as Harald's heel slammed into the door beside the lock. There was plenty of hip thrust, and splinters flew as the door sprang back. Harald swiveled, aiming from the hip—the Fighting Sevens used instinctual shooting, because traditional targeting takes time—then stopped.
“Hey, Ixil.” Harald used Deltrassol's first name because that was basic intimidation. “Is everything coming along nicely?”
On the bed, a pale-faced man in a dark suit lay still, eyes widened. The half-manifest wraith sitting astride him pumped her hips several more times before stopping.
The wraith turned to regard Harald, and opened her mouth—it looked like darkness pricked with stars—in what might have been a grin.
Then she grew insubstantial, and Harald tried not to look at the tumescence revealed inside Ixil Deltrassol's trousers. The wraith faded almost to invisibility.
Harald laughed and took three paces into the room, stopping close to the bed.
“Ain't that always the way, Ixil? Here one second, fading away the next.” And, to the wraith: “Right, darling?”
The wraith was already sinking downward through the floor.
She nodded to Harald and gave a tiny wave in the direction of the bed. In a second, she was gone.
Deltrassol's mouth opened and closed. Then he swallowed and said, “What—”
“I'm arresting you for murder,” said Harald.
“No—”
“Yes. Unless you can convince me there's a reason I should let you go. Then you'd fly straight back to Illurium, wouldn't you?”
“I . . . No, I'd stay here. Honest, Officer. I'd—”
“Wrong answer.” Harald's hand seemed to flicker into motion. “Try again.”
Drops of blood sprang out across Deltrassol's forehead.
Harald raised the weapon again, ready to inflict deeper damage.
“Uh . . . Officer. What—What do you want me to do?”
But Harald's gun was now pointed at Deltrassol's crotch.
“I like tiny targets. It's the challenge, y'know?”
“Look, Officer, I didn't know the dwarves were going to . . . do what they did. I swear, I only heard on the radio afterward what happened. Thanatos . . . I'd never get involved in . . . stuff like that.”
Harald lowered his aim slightly, to appear less threatening. He could still shoot Deltrassol's thigh and destroy the femoral artery with minimal movement.
“I'd like to believe you.” Harald stepped closer to the bed and leaned forward, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around Deltrassol's throat. “But I'm afraid I can't.”
If Deltrassol had had an active hand in what happened to Sushana, then Harald's thumb and finger were going to close, collapsing the laryngeal cartilage. It would take a while for Deltrassol to choke to death.
“No, man . . . Please. Don't.”
“One chance.” Harald tapped Deltrassol on the forehead. “Relax.”
“Please—”
“I don't know whether you know this yet as it's easy to . . . lose control and . . . let go of the body and drift . . . just drift . . .” The tone of Harald's voice deepened and slowed as he looked into Deltrassol's eyes. “ . . . and you can close your eyes . . . that's right . . .as the threat fades . . .”
Deltrassol's eyelids drooped, then closed.
The marines had taught Harald to kill with guns and blades, with hands and feet, and they had drilled him in the use of subtler weapons.
Ixil Deltrassol slid deeper into a trance. Disconcerted by fear, he was totally vulnerable to the unexpected mesmeric tone of Harald's trained voice.
Deeper still.
“. . . so much pain to sit on . . . the fence as . . . defense is unnecessary so . . . you let it go . . .”
As an embassy driver, Deltrassol had received trance training, but it was superficial. After Harald penetrated the initial defense, Deltrassol's training made him more vulnerable: he had been in trances so often it was easy to return.
“Policeman,” Deltrassol murmured.
Harald modulated his voice to match Deltrassol's neurophysiology. “. . . because I'm the one who can . . . save you from pain . . . like a windowpane into memory of . . . things you have to . . . tell me . . .as your unconscious knows what it needs . . . to help you as it . . . always has to . . . tell me . . .”
“Police. Our contact. He . . . Setup.”
Harald leaned closer.
“. . . tell me everything . . .”
Laura walked out into the main office area. Donal had been gone ages getting the coffee—he'd offered to bring back a cup for her—and she wondered what was keeping him. The caffeine meant nothing to her black zombie blood, but it was unusual for Donal to take so long.
On the few occasions Donal had drunk alcohol since coming here, he'd drunk raw, cheap whiskey that Laura wouldn't dream of putting in her car—the Vixen was more fussy than that. To a zombie, alcohol tasted like sour vinegar laced with something worse: rats' piss, or the lymph fluid of crushed beetles.
Drunk as a zombie was an oxymoron that had somehow passed into the language as a simile. Laura used to consider it one of life's ironies, back when she'd been alive.
“Hey, Laura.” Alexa was on the phone, cupping her hand around the mouthpiece. “I've got Harald on the—”
Her expression changed to a frown, then she looked up at Laura and shrugged. “Sorry. He just hung up on me.”
“Is everything all right?”
/> “He told me to cancel an EPB. The one on the Illurian driver. Er”—Alexa glanced down at her notebook—“Ixil Deltrassol.”
Laura glanced at the door, where Donal was backing in with three cups of coffee clutched between his hands. No wonder he was taking so long.
“What happened? Don't tell me he's . . .” Laura let her voice trail off. “Never mind.”
Alexa stared at her for a moment.
“I don't think Harald's offed the guy, if that's what you mean.”
“No,” said Laura. “I don't think one of my officers would do such a thing.”
“Me neither.” Donal approached with the coffees, wincing as he tried—and failed—to put all three down on Alexa's desktop without spilling anything. “Sorry. What bad thing wouldn't we dream of doing?”
“Taking the law into your hands,” said Alexa.
“Well, Thanatos forbid.”
“In a lethal manner,” said Laura. “Causing a suspect to disappear.”
“Oh.” Donal looked at Alexa. “Who are we talking about, exactly?”
“Deltrassol, Ixil. Wanted for—”
“The embassy driver, right?”
“That's the man.” Laura perched herself on the edge of the desk. “And did Harald give any indication why we should kill an Extended Points Bulletin? Doesn't he know how hard I have to work to get one published in the first place?”
“Yeah,” said Alexa.
“But he doesn't care.” Donal half-smiled.
“I think”—Alexa checked her notepad once more—“he's got the guy and turned him as a witness.”
Laura bit her lip. “All right.”
Donal saw her expression and decided that Harald was in trouble but would probably talk his way out of it. Donal himself had had such arguments with various bosses. You interrogated a witness, an opportunity to lever something out of them came up, and you took it, offering them a lighter sentence or whatever.
The thing was, however spur of the moment the offer might be, the officer had to follow through on it. On the streets, someone who fails to keep their promises isn't “stand-up,” and that is the worst crime of all.
“All right,” said Laura again. “That's fine. If I'm not around when Harald turns up, get him to hang around until I am.”
“I'll try.” Alexa sipped her coffee and nodded toward Donal. “Thanks.”
Laura took a sip of hers, then put the cup back down on Alexa's desk and appeared to forget about it. “Donal, have you got the remaining travel details worked out?”
“Yeah, hang on a sec.” Carrying his coffee, Donal went to his desk and retrieved a pale-green pad. “Here you are. Are you sure we can afford this?”
“I can.”
“Well . . . all right.”
He was an orphan from the wrong side of the tracks, traveling abroad.
Shit. I'm flying to Illurium.
Sister Mary-Anne would have been proud of him.
Harald leaned closer to Deltrassol.
“. . . deeper,” he said, “and then tell me . . . whether . . . any commands lurk in there.”
He was talking about Deltrassol's subconscious, and there was a reason: if the Black Circle had laid hex traps or guards in place, even ordinary mesmeric digging should expose their existence.
A buried wipeout trap would cause Deltrassol to scream, as inlaid hex scoured his memories all the way back to childhood. Harald was willing to risk that. Part of him wanted it to happen.
“. . . cashing in on memory where the . . . bosses cached their commands . . .”
“No.” Eyelids fluttering, Deltrassol shook his head.
His personality was still intact. No mages had buried hex traps in his mind.
“. . . and you want to tell me . . . what shipment the dwarves were stealing . . .”
“Yes. Champagne. The expensive stuff. Crates of it, worth thousands. We had the plans, police-response plans. How they knew to land the pterabat on top of the skull.”
Champagne?
All this for fuckin' champagne?
“. . . and when you saw that the dwarves had a body aboard, when you saw the van . . .”
“I pulled out, man. Aborted. Don't want that kind of trouble.”
“. . . is what we want to avoid as you decide you'll do everything to help me . . .”
“Yes.”
“. . . and I need to know, your boss, Sir Alvan . . .”
“That's right.”
“. . . is he your friend?”
“No.”
“. . . while you spend time in his office . . .”
“The club.”
“. . . because of this place? The See-Through? Tell me . . .”
“Sir Alvan comes here. By chance, I saw him. Recognized him.”
“. . . though he was in disguise . . .”
“Yes, a mask. Ensorcelled. But the way he walked. I knew.”
“. . . that this was Sir Alvan, and you blackmailed him . . .”
“For small amounts, for a man like him.”
“. . . who would do you a special favor if you asked . . .”
“His secret. Would destroy him. If I told.”
“. . . and he could arrange to fly you back to Illurium . . .”
“Yes.”
So Deltrassol was a blackmailer within his own embassy. He was a lowlife, and Harald wanted badly to take him down. But if there were resources available in Illurium, in Silvex City where Donal Riordan was headed . . .
Got you, zombiefucker.
The bastards who'd gotten away with Cortindo's body and the—for Death's sake—expensive champagne had a police contact, someone who'd given them the response plans. By itself the evidence meant little, but it closed the chain of cause and effect that stretched all the way back to Commissioner Vilnar's office.
But first things first.
Riordan. You're dead.
Harald told Deltrassol to sleep for a minute. It allowed Harald time to think.
Then, link by link, he put his plan together.
“. . . and when you return to the embassy, you'll ask him . . .” Harald drew the sentence out, hearing a raucous shout from the hallway outside. It was a drunkard's roar, somewhere on this floor: one of the club's clients had teetered out of control.
This could be a problem if it pulled Deltrassol out of the trance.
Then a liquid crunch sounded from outside, along with a sudden cessation in the drunkard's torrent of curses, followed by Stone's voice: “That'll cool him off nicely, boys. Be gentle with him.”
The sounds of heels scraping along bare floor followed.
Harald shifted into deep command mode, instructing Deltrassol.
“There is a house . . . in Upper Kiltrin North . . .”
This was a district containing some of the richer sections of Silvex City, where Harald had spent time in Illurium. The military camp had been twenty miles outside the city. During his assignment with the military police, Harald had spent time in the city proper, liaising with local civilians.
He helped investigate cases and assisted on the Octemday bar runs, where trios of MPs would have to extract carousing marines from the detritus of smashed tables and unconscious civilians. And do it without inflicting lethal damage on drunken men who were trained to kill.
“Kiltrin,” murmured Deltrassol. “Pulkwill's Hill.”
“. . . That's right, and from Pulkwill's Hill you descend . . . where it zigs and zags . . .” Harald waited for the tiny nod from Deltrassol before continuing. “To the silver-and-white mansion with the three steel . . . gargoyles . . . outside, the ones with spread-out wings . . .”
“Move.”
“. . . that move, that's right. The gargoyles move”—Harald's voice lowered further—“and in that house . . . that mansion . . . lives a man called Don Falvin Mentrassore . . .”
“Don Mentrassore.”
“. . . that's right, and the don has a daughter . . . called Rasha . . .and servants, and the chief butler mi
ght be called . . . Adamnol . . .”
It had been over two years since Harald's last visit. Adamnol was probably still there, but life was uncertain.
“. . .You will say the code word . . . that you will remember to forget until . . . you remember in that moment . . . that Darksong Lightning is the code . . . and you won't mind it vanishing from . . .your mind . . . inside Don Mentrassore's house.”
The don was a thin, elegant man with a silver-gray goatee, usually with a pearl attached at each earlobe, who conducted his affairs with the same kind of diligent yet easy grace that he bore in social situations.
That was why he had been so disappointed in his daughter Rasha when she fell in love with a young student of dubious character and family. It had been that student—part of the local underworld with links into crooked quartermasters among the military bases—who had been one of Harald's targets. Harald and four other MPs, all in plain clothes, broke into a camp arsenal just in time to apprehend the men who were making off with firearms and other matériel.
Two of the criminals had reached for their own weapons, and in seconds a firefight blasted the air apart—inside an arsenal filled with explosives. It was good luck that the arsenal remained intact instead of disappearing in a fireball. It would have taken out the entire camp, including two thousand men and women.
Rasha Mentrassore's fiancé had been too stupid to surrender.
He'd also been too stupid to leave Rasha at home. In trying to show off to her, boasting of his importance among important businessmen, he'd smuggled Rasha into the place in the back of his stolen army jeeplet. She'd crawled out of the vehicle when the gunfire started.
It might have been a stray round of Harald's that took Rasha in the right shoulder; it might have been someone else's. Regardless, Rasha had pitched over with her mouth working but her throat paralyzed. Her shoulder was smashed meat, splintered with bones.
After Harald and his team had killed the men who refused to stop, they went to work on Rasha and two associates of the gang, who had been caught in the crossfire. Using straps from the ammunition cases—nice ironic serendipity—they tied off the major arteries of the wounded trio.
By rights they should have handed Rasha over to the civilian police. But Harald had judged her to be largely innocent, manipulated by the boyfriend whose body now came in three parts.