Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

by Jeff VanderMeer

  “This is my fault, Rathven,” Finch said. “I'm sorry.”

  Bosun: “Your fault? Because you didn't kill me when you had the chance?” An odd expression of sadness and contempt.

  Not for lack of trying.

  “No, because I ever went after you. I should've left you alone.”

  A snort from Bosun. “I don't believe you.”

  I don't believe myself.

  The fungal gun complicated things. Even if Finch got a shot in first, Bosun's gun could go off in an unexpected way. Infect them both.

  “Where's Stark?” he asked. Knew the answer. Had to start somewhere.

  Flat, emotionless: “Gone, but you knew that. You didn't hide him well enough. I found him all crumpled up in the alley, thinking he was someone else. Then he died. There was nothing I could do ... He's somewhere safe. For now.”

  A wave of dizziness washed over Finch. Let it come, bent at his knees to stop from falling. As if he were back on the boat with Wyte, heading out to the Spit to meet Stark and Bosun for the first time.

  Said: “I wasn't trying to hide him. I didn't want to hurt him. But he, you, kept coming at me.”

  Bosun ignored that. “I came here to kill you, maybe kill her, too. I still could.” In a speculative tone. Like weighing whether to skip stones across a river or keep their smooth weight in his pocket.

  “You didn't bring your muscle.” To remind him it was two-to-one odds.

  A sharp, curt laugh from Bosun. “No muscle left. They wouldn't follow with Stark gone. Now it's just like old times. Or would have been.”

  Finch, in an even tone: “Why don't you just leave? No one gets hurt then. Because you'll get hurt even if you manage to take out one of us. You know that.”

  Could see Rathven was having a harder and harder time holding on to the revolver. Didn't want her to drop it. No idea what Bosun would do then. Even with Finch ready to put a bullet in his head.

  Bosun looked up at Finch for a second. Nothing there but a low animal cunning. But unmoored somehow. The eyes older than before. “Here's a deal for you: give me the memory bulb powder and then I'll leave.” Could sense the intent.

  Something in Finch rebelled at that. Wyte resurrected, even as a shadow. Along with Stark and Otto. Each haunting the other inside of Bosun's mind. Dead but not put to rest.

  “That might drive you insane, Bosun. All kinds of things might happen.”

  “He's my brother!” A shriek. A scream. Something horrible and lost rising out of Bosun. Finger twitching on the trigger. Finch saw now the incredible control Bosun was exerting over his own impulses. To kill. To strike out. Weighed against that the promise of seeing his brother again. No matter how perverse the homecoming.

  Could hear Rathven's sudden intake of breath in the aftermath.

  Finch nodded. “I'll give it to you.” Took the last pouch of powder out of his jacket. Turned sideways, gun still trained on Bosun. Tossed it toward the open door. “All you have to do to get it is leave.”

  Mouth dry. Legs still shaky. Holding it together for Rathven.

  Bosun: “Tell her to put her gun down. And put down your sword.”

  “Rathven, put the gun down,” Finch said. Let the sword clatter out of his hand. Couldn't risk squatting to place it on the floor. Might just fall over.

  “I don't want to put the gun down, Finch.”

  “Just do it. I've got him covered.”

  She hesitated, then, hand shaking, placed her gun on the table between them.

  “Now I'll get up and move around you to the door,” Bosun said.

  “Be careful, Finch,” Rathven said.

  Bosun got up. Came around the table toward Finch. Stepping over the fallen sword.

  Gun to gun. Bosun inches away from him in that enclosed space.

  “Let's not see each other again,” Finch said.

  A map of anger and frustration on Bosun's face. “No promises,” he hissed.

  A hint of a movement as Bosun passed him, back to the door. A blossoming agony Finch couldn't at first identify because of all of the other pain. Then he realized it came from his side.

  Knew he was reeling, losing his balance.

  Bosun, at the door, stooping to pickup the pouch just as Finch realized he was bleeding. Rathven lunging for her revolver, turning to shoot at Bosun as he ran out the door. Missing. Tearing a chunk out of the ceiling. Rathven scrambling to lock the door behind Bosun.

  Finch looked down to see bright red blood welling up from a cut in his side. Saw Bosun's long, thin knife there on the floor. It had been the lightest of touches. Not even a touch. A whisper.

  Vaguely knew Rathven was next to him as he slumped to the ground. Felt the touch of his own sword against his exposed foot as he slid, her arms around him.

  “Finch! Finch!” Her voice, keeping him awake when he didn't want to be awake.

  She brought him close. Her body warm and solid and real. He thought she was shaking. Realized she was sobbing. Then she was pulling his shirt away from his side. Pushing something up against it. Felt something wet and sticky next to his left arm.

  “What's wrong?” he thought he asked.

  “You've been stabbed, Finch,” he thought he heard her say. Her face way up near the ceiling, looking down. Her arms impossibly long.

  A coughing laugh. “Have I?” A kind of lurching dislocation.

  Rathven was wrapping something around his side. Gauze? Urging him onto his feet.

  “You're going into shock. I need to get you somewhere I can help you,” she said.

  “I deserve better.” A dry laugh. Everybody deserved better.

  Lurched up, almost falling forward onto his face. Leaned into her.

  Glints and glimmers in a dark pool. Past the battered, weathered book stacks. Past her little kitchen. Past her bedroom. A glimpse of green and purple. The brightness of a single bulb. Like a sentry.

  A rough-hewn doorway. Water on the floor. Curved walls. Moisture. A cockleshell of a boat. Strange pale-blue eyes of mudskippers in the shallows. Glowing in the light from a lantern.

  She said something to him he didn't understand. Took his arm. Guided him until he was lying with his back against the prow, legs out in front like useless matchsticks. She took off the oars, began to row.

  Glimpses of roots, brick, and wood in the ceiling. His mangled hand trailing through the water. The wound in his side like a rip in a stuffed animal. All the sawdust coming out. Lulling him to sleep. Closed his eyes. She shook him awake. Nodded at her as if she'd said something he agreed with. But there was nothing left to say.

  A thud as the boat knocked against something.

  “We're here,” she said.

  Opened his eyes. Saw her tying a rope to a lock embedded in old stone steps. Beyond, a worn archway.

  She forced him to his feet. Helped him up the steps.

  A single large room at the top, dark except for Rathven's swinging lantern. Caught a glimpse of books, a table.

  She led him to a cot at the far end. Fell heavily onto it. She asked him a question. Didn't hear her. Fuzziness around the words. Drifted. Curious about the dryness in his mouth. The way his vision kept blurring.

  Said, “The towers are changing. Need to get to the roof.”

  Rathven saying “No,” forcing him back down onto the cot.

  Blinks of light and time.

  Fading and coming back.

  A few hours later. Awake on the cot. Looking out through his good eye. She'd cut his clothes off. Washed him. Bandaged his side. Could feel the edge of the wound like a mouth as he lay there with a towel around his waist.

  He was at the back of a large room, looking toward the front and the doors. The archway. Rich, burgundy carpet and rugs worn but clean. The walls covered from top to bottom in bookcases. Every shelf was filled with books. Perfectly preserved. In neat rows. On the floor, more books. In careful piles. Beside boxes and boxes of black market supplies.

  Next to him, medicine and food. Two more cots and another
table. A one-burner portable kerosene stove and a pot on this second table. Along with a rifle and several boxes of ammo. His sword. His gun.

  Between him and the doors: a globe of the known world on a rosewood table. Four ornate wooden chairs. Rathven sitting in one of the chairs. Watching him.

  “I brought your maps down here,” she said, indicating the table. “A cane to help you walk. A chamber pot. A bottle of your whisky. You need to stay here. Out of sight,” she said. “You need to rest.”

  “Clean yourself up. Find someplace safe to be, Finch.”

  “What about Feral? Where is he?”

  “I'll bring him later, if the boat doesn't spook him.”

  Outside, he could lose himself in the fight. Could join the rebels. Could join the militias. Could do something. But, overnight, he had become a broken-down old man. A pensioner well past the days of pensions. Waiting for better days.

  I am not a detective.

  “What about the towers? Has anything changed?”

  “Nothing. Don't worry-I'll let you know.”

  “What is this place?”

  “It's an old library,” she said. “From above it's just rubble. You can't get to it. But this one room I found intact. Although it didn't have many books in it to start.”

  “Found the rest?” he managed.

  “Yes. I brought them here from all across the city.”

  ? “Why?”

  She had the look of the true believer, of someone who still had hope, as she said, “Finch, here you'll find every book I could salvage about the city. Every book by any Ambergrisian author. Every book of history, of politics. Biographies. Novels. Poetry. They're all here. Much of it knowledge that was lost in the wars, because of the Houses. Because of the gray caps. But someday, Finch, when all of this is over ...”

  Finch looked away. Ashamed by her passion when he had so little left.

  “Ever afraid of being found out?”

  “All the time.”

  “The cots?”

  “Before they disbanded the camps, I'd shelter escapees here. Or people who had been released but were injured.”

  “And now?”

  “Apparently, this is now a haven for cynical detectives.”

  That made him smile. A little.

  She stood. “You lost a lot of blood. But I stopped the bleeding. It's your other injuries I need to work on now. I'm not strong enough to turn you over. I'll need your help.”

  She got gauze, bandages, and other supplies. Water from the underground channel. A kind of ritual and finality to the way she set the supplies on the table next to him. That made him shudder. Thinking of the Partial with his knives and scalding water.

  She saw his look as she set a pot to boil on the little stove. “I have to clean the wounds, Finch,” she said.

  He nodded. “I know.”

  She began wiping away any blood that hadn't already come off. Ignored him when he winced. Stopped only if he cried out.

  She looked different in that light. Older. Tougher. More experienced.

  “I think two of my ribs are broken,” he said.

  “Or bruised,” she said. “You might be lucky.”

  Tried not to scream when she washed the places where his toe and finger had once been. Replaced Sintra's field dressings with proper bandages. Cleaned his swollen eye. His broken nose.

  He stared at the ceiling as she pulled the towel back and gently dabbed at his thighs. Past modesty.

  “Oh, Finch,” she said, betraying tenderness that had been disguised by action before. “Who did this to you?”

  “A Partial.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “I killed him ... Will I live?”

  Didn't answer. Just replaced the towel, said, “You have deep cuts on your arms and legs.” She began to wash and dress the wounds. The warmth stung and comforted all at once. The smell of piss had faded. There was an antiseptic feel to the air.

  “Turn over now,” she said. “I need to check your back.”

  With a groan, he managed that delicate maneuver. Ancient, creaky, feather-weak.

  “You have more cuts,” she announced after a second. Her voice not quite as even. Not quite as under control. She'd stopped working. Knew she was staring at him.

  “Is it that bad?”

  “I've seen worse,” she managed.

  “Can't even feel it,” Finch said. Shock? Infection? Some last blessing from Shriek?

  She worked on him for long minutes. Finally, had him sit up. Wrapped bandages around his ribs. Her head next to his. Her arms stretched around him.

  Slowly reached out to her. Wrapped his arms around her. Though it hurt him.

  Rathven held him. Held him like a friend. Solid. Comforting.

  “Why are you doing this for me, Rathven?”

  “You saved my life.”

  “I put you in danger.”

  “We both did.”

  “I have to tell you something,” he said.

  “Whatever you need,” she said.

  Understood that she might give him more than he had any right to expect.

  It was hard. Halting. But after he began, it was hard to stop. He told her everything. All of it. Leaving nothing out. Sparing no one, least of all himself. As if truly confessing. Needing it out of him.

  He told her about the Lady in Blue. About how he'd left Stark. Wyte's death. About Bliss. The Partial. How Shriek had come out of him. About Sintra. Heard his voice. Detached, normal. Wondered how it sounded to her. Rational? Insane?

  She said nothing. Just held him. Listened. When he was done, she gave him water. Made him eat a little. Then gently pushed him back onto the cot. Whispered that she would bring him clean clothes soon.

  He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  SUNDAY

  ading in and out of consciousness. Restless and exhausted. A dryness to his skin. An attenuated feeling. The sense that he could blow away in the wind. Did it come from Shriek? From having given part of himself away? He didn't know.

  Lying on a cot or sitting in a chair seemed like a kind of sloth. Also a kind of gnawing ache that was half for Sintra and half, perversely, for what the Lady in Blue had shown him. The sentimental thought that he had never had a chance to tell Wyte about any of it.

  Strange, but when he closed his eyes he had an image of the hotel above them restored to its former grandeur. A concierge and porter in the lobby. Someone behind the desk waiting to take his key. Sintra in an evening gown. They'd be about to take a motored vehicle to the opera. The streets would be busy with merchants and people coming home from work. The buildings, the storefronts, would be bright and cheery with lights. Like it had been in those mayfly beautiful moments between wars, before the Rising.

  Waiting for a bomb to fall through the ceiling. Waiting for Partials to come up the tunnel to kill or arrest him. Waiting for salvation or disaster to come tumbling out of the space between the towers.

  When he couldn't stand what he was feeling, he shook the shadows from his head. Went over to the map of Ambergris and the overlay. Removed the globe and star chart to fit them on the main table. Didn't know if it was Finch or Crossley who liked working on the project. Or both.

  Rathven had just left to get some more supplies. She'd told him it was Sunday morning. Ordered him to get back on the cot.

  Whatever is coming through the towers, the world will change again.

  Still, for now, the world had only changed a little. He used a soft cloth on the map to erase what had been lost. Slowly, with regret, removed the Spit. Knew that even if parts survived, no one lived there now. Erased the station. Removed the words “Wyte's apartment.” Removed the words “bell tower.” Didn't think any of the detectives would ever go back there. Each red mushroom on his map, he now changed to a symbol indicating a fortified position. Added Stark's mushroom house, whether occupied now or not. Added the towers in the bay, which he had resisted until he kne
w they were complete. Out of fear? He didn't know.

  Question: How could I know they would burn the body?

  Answer: Because it would've been stupid for them not to.

  The memory bulbs he'd eaten. The feel of Sintra's body beside him in bed. The full and terrible force of Heretic's gaze. The Partial's scorn for his weakness. The look in the Lady in Blue's eyes as she tried to convince him. The ruined fortress.

  Then: disrupting his thoughts, a flash of gold-green light. A fizzling, popping sound. The sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs.

  Finch stood up beside his map, grabbed his gun.

  Bliss appeared at the edge of the carpet. Dark smudges on his face. The ragged edges of his jacket had a burnt look to them. His dark pants had darker stains on them.

  “I should be more surprised,” Finch said. And he wasn't. Just scared. Another test to pass.

  An odd dueling smugness and humility to Bliss's expression. “Rathven has fewer secrets than she thinks, and I have more. You look well.”

  No indication from those eyes of what to expect.

  “I look like shit. I feel like shit.”

  “Better that than dead,” Bliss said, walking into the room. “Since you're still alive, I assume the mission was successful.”

  “Wouldn't you know already?”

  “The towers will be operational very soon. Then we'll know. Where's the piece of metal Shriek used, Finch?”

  “You've healed well,” Finch said, ignoring him. “Almost as if I never hit you.”

  Bliss pulled up a chair next to the map. “I took a vacation. Somewhere remote. Somewhere I expected would be a little less . . . exciting ... than it was. An enigmatic smile. ”I see you are busy changing the map. A little premature, don't you think?“ Bliss's features hardened. ”The mission is complete?"

  “Yes,” Finch admitted. “There were complications. But it's done.” Hesitant to tell him just how many complications.