Man of Steele

by Alex P. Berg

  I heard a heavy thwack. Bonesaw grunted, jabbing the butt of his axe in Steele’s direction. The darkness turned her into an indistinct blur, but I heard her makeshift truncheon whistle through the air.

  Bonesaw turned and lunged at me, jabbing with the pointed end of his polearm. I hopped back, slamming into the suit at the wall. A few pieces clattered to the floor around me. I ducked again as the blade flew through the air, crunching the suit’s breastplate. I landed on a discarded shield, grabbed it, and rolled onto my back, catching Bonesaw’s next swing square in its center. It rattled, shook, and split, the axehead protruding two inches through the metal.

  Bonesaw roared and pulled back on the axe, ripping the shield from my grip like he might a sucker from a toddler. He swung the axe over his head, but Shay jumped on his back before he could bring it down, grabbing onto the axe pole for dear life.

  I took the opportunity. I flipped onto my feet and launched myself into Bonesaw’s midsection, brass knuckles first. A crunch of ribs met my fist.

  Bonesaw didn’t like that. He growled and slammed an arm into my side, sending me flying into the nearest wall. I groaned as the air left my lungs. My knuckles slipped from my grip, tinkling as they hit the floor.

  Bonesaw reached over his back, latched onto Steele, and flipped her over him. She hit the ground with a crack.

  “NO!” I stood and ran, pulling the knife from my jacket as I did so. Bonesaw aimed a boot at her head.

  I hit him just in time. With his weight on one leg, my tackle sent us toppling to the ground. I used my momentum to drive the confiscated blade into the meat of his left arm.

  This time, he roared in pain. He also lashed out, clubbing me in the head with his elbow. I tumbled across the floor. The blade ripped free from his arm. With my hands bloodied, I lost my grip. The knife clattered away, lost in the darkness.

  His dark shadow descended on me. Huge hands wrapped around my neck, lifting me off the floor as if I were a rag doll. He whipped me though the air, slamming me into one of the nearby shelves. Books flew, and I had a brief sensation of deja vu, but at least when I’d collided with the bookshelf in my own apartment, I’d been in a position of greater power. Now I couldn’t breath. Bonesaw’s fingers were iron. My windpipe was being crushed into a diamond.

  I sped a right hook at Bonesaw’s face, but it bounced off harmlessly. I tried a jab with my left, only to have my fist scream in pain as the resulting jolt reverberated down my bite-ravaged hand.

  Bonesaw grinned, his sneer a sickly yellow in the near darkness. “How does it feel, Daggers? How does it feel to lose?”

  I saw movement. A dark blur. Then a brief flash caught in a stray moonbeam.

  Shay screamed as she jumped on Bonesaw’s back for a second time. I heard a wet slice. Blood splattered and hit me in the face. Bonesaw howled as my discarded blade sunk deep into his shoulder, right between his neck and clavicle.

  His grip weakened to bronze, and I took advantage. I kicked out, landing a full-strength shin blow to his testicles. At the same time, Shay wrenched on the knife.

  Bonesaw’s hands vanished from my neck. I dropped to the floor, landing hard on my ass while he gurgled and tottered backwards, dropping to his knees. Books rained down around me, and I heard a slow creak.

  “Crap!” I dove to the side as the bookshelf toppled and fell, striking Bonesaw square on the head as it crashed to the ground. Boards broke, something or someone groaned, and a cloud of dust sloughed off the top of the shelf.

  I coughed and stood, massaging my neck. “Shay?”

  The bookshelf creaked and shook. It rose off the ground, tipped, and toppled to the side. Bonesaw crawled out from under it, a dark sheen covering his face and neck. He reached up, gripped the knife that protruded from his shoulder, and yanked.

  He cried out as it pulled free. “Grahh! Why I’m gonna—”

  A rush of air swept past me, Shay at the helm. A weapon whistled through the air, catching Bonesaw in the middle of his cheek. Bone crunched, a wet, sickening sound, and he crashed to the floor like a four hundred pound sack of oranges.

  Shay dropped the weapon and grabbed me by the arm. “What are you waiting for, Daggers? We need to get out of here!”

  I spotted a flickering light in the distance. Now that I focused on it, I could hear shouts, too.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked.

  “The weapon? A mace.”

  “You found a mace?”

  “On the suit of armor.” Shay glanced up the hallway. “Daggers? Come on!”

  “Right.” Another lightning induced burst ripped through the corridor, searing an image of Bonesaw’s mangled face into my memory, all red and black and bright white from the flash. I grabbed the mace and turned to the window. Glass shattered as I slammed the business end of the weapon through the pane. Another couple swings freed the remainder of the shards from the sill.

  “After—”

  Shay dove through the gap into the rainstorm outside.

  “—you.”

  I jumped out after her and started running, angry shouts and flickering lamplight trailing us as we faded into the night.

  32

  A beat cop stepped forward as our rickshaw turned the corner toward the King’s Theater’s main entrance, waving and shouting at our driver.

  “No way, pal! Active crime scene! Turn it around, now! Don’t say a thing, just go.”

  A roaring brazier at his back cast him in shadows. A cap hid his blonde hair, protecting it from the incessant rain, but his voice and can-do attitude gave him away. “Phillips,” I called as I hopped off the cart. “It’s okay.”

  The young officer’s eyes widened as he caught sight of me and the person who followed me off the rickshaw. “Daggers? Holy crap! And Steele!”

  He took two quick steps toward us, arms outstretched as if he wanted to give us a hug, but stopped halfway. Likely he thought better of it—or he got his first good look at us.

  He gaped. “Gods… You look like hell. I mean…sorry. No offense.”

  “None taken,” said Steele. And there wasn’t any. We’d taken good looks at each other. Soaked to the bone, bedraggled, with rips and tears in our clothing, splattered with blood, both ours and Bonesaw’s. I still couldn’t believe the rickshaw driver took a chance on us. Numerous others hadn’t.

  “Someone pay this man,” I said, pointing to our driver as I headed toward the theater’s entrance. “Double the asking rate. The Captain still here?”

  “McCartney!” Phillips waved at another of the dozen cops patrolling the edge of the theater and pointed him toward our driver. “And yes, she is. The Captain. Here, I mean. Gods, Detectives. What happened?”

  “And Quinto? Rodgers?” asked Steele.

  “Still here, too,” said Phillips.

  “Take us to them.”

  I could tell Phillips wanted to know more, but he’d already asked once, and neither Steele’s nor my tone invited further questions. The cops outside the theater noticed us as we approached. One of them nodded, eyes wide. Some of them murmured. And then the thoroughly unexpected happened.

  They started cheering.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Hell yeah!”

  “Daggers and Steele!”

  “Give ’em hell, Detectives!”

  I waved them down. “Alright, that’s enough. Back to work. This night’s far from over.”

  They simmered down, but only a little, their cheers following us as we passed through the King’s front doors, into the lobby, and into the auditorium.

  If I thought the front was well populated, the theater’s interior put it to shame. Lanterns glowed all over, and people crawled along the aisles. Not just bluecoats; SWAT guys in black, CSU teams in white, even axe-carrying firefighters in khaki and crimson. White sheets dotted the landscape, some of them stained dark with red splotches, tens of them, but there weren’t enough. A good dozen more toughs lay dead, bea
ten and bloody, free to the world to see. There must’ve been close to forty in the auditorium alone.

  “Whoa,” said Steele.

  Phillips nodded as he led us down an aisle. “No kidding. Last I heard, the Captain and them had moved back to the orchestra pit. There’s a, uh…well I don’t even know how to describe it.”

  “A room full of dead gangsters, frozen stiff as boards?” I said. “Yeah, I know. What do you mean, moved back?”

  “Well, there’s…” Phillips spread his arms. “I mean, it’s everywhere. Dead guys up front. In the pit. More in the back. Plus this crazy lizard thing—”

  “A basilisk,” said Steele.

  “A what now?”

  “I’ll explain later,” I said.

  We reached the theater’s front row, and Phillips led us down a ladder into the orchestra pit. Someone had hacked a hole in the makeshift barrier that had previously separated the pit from the auditorium, maybe one of the firemen or one of the thugs during the fighting that had taken place. Voices and flickering lights leaked out from within.

  I stepped through the hole and found it much the same as I remembered it: cold, creepy, and full of dead gang leaders and their bodyguards. There were a few familiar, warm-blooded faces inside, as well.

  Phillips cleared his throat. “Ah…Captain?”

  Knox turned, her face drawn and her arms crossed. Her eyes turned into saucers as she looked past Phillips to us.

  “Oh, thank heavens!” She ran to us, wrapping Shay and me in as wide a hug as she could muster. Her fierce grip belied her small stature, but it was still an awkward embrace, and not only because I’d never seen the Captain so outwardly emotional. Also because she only came up to my ribs.

  Quinto, Rodgers, and Cairny knelt over a trio of bodies. It was Rodgers who first noticed us. “Daggers! Steele!”

  Before I knew it, we’d been mobbed, our Captain-centric hug expanding to include everyone. Arms enveloped me. Hands grasped me on the shoulders and patted me on the back.

  “Holy harvest, it’s good to see you, Daggers!”

  “Gods, Steele, are you okay?”

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, the pair of you.”

  “Alright,” I said. “Ease it up, will you? We’re happy to see you too, but I’ve got bruises on top of bruises here.”

  The crew gave us space. The Captain adjusted her jacket and nodded. “Right. Sorry about that. You’ll forgive us for our outbursts, Detectives. We were afraid you might be, well…you know.”

  “You assumed that without a body? Come on, Captain. You’re selling us short. Steele especially, given how much confidence you expressed in her during her absence.” I glanced at my partner. “You were right about her, by the way. She saved my life. Again.”

  “I wouldn’t have needed to if you’d been more focused during our fight with Bonesaw. I still don’t know why you just stood there at the end.”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe I was out of it after he nearly choked me to death. Seeing him rise from underneath that bookcase and pull the knife from his shoulder was like seeing a zombie rise from the grave.”

  “So you were right,” said Quinto. “Bonesaw was behind this. He’s the one who abducted you?”

  “Yes and no,” I said. “He was involved, but he wasn’t in charge. He was working for someone else.”

  “Was?” said Rodgers.

  “I’m, ah…not sure he made it,” I said. “Steele might’ve broken his skull. We didn’t hang around to give him a physical.”

  Cairny blinked. “Dang, Shay. That’s cold-blooded.”

  “It was him or us,” Shay said. “I don’t feel much remorse.”

  “So if Bonesaw wasn’t in charge,” said the Captain, “who is?”

  “Sebastian Cobb,” I said. “Or rather, Sebastian Markeville. You probably won’t recognize the name, Captain, but he was my contact with the Wyverns during the case preceding your arrival at the Fifth. Obviously, he was never captured when we busted the Wyverns and their dragon hatching operation. At the time, I didn’t have any reason to believe he was more than what he’d claimed to be, but I always had a sneaking suspicion he was more involved than advertised. And hoo-boy, was I ever right. He’s the head guy, at least he is of this new gang. They call themselves the Winds of Change.”

  “I don’t know Cobb,” said Knox, “but Markeville rings a bell. A wealthy donor by the name of William Markeville. Gave a lot of money to the department over the years, but that was a long time ago. Twenty or more years back, if I recall.”

  “Right around when the Wyverns were active, I imagine,” I said. “I wasn’t sure if Sebastian was a first generation crook or not. Now I’m guessing not. Perhaps he’s more audacious in the endeavor than his forebears, though.”

  Knox nodded. “Tell me everything.”

  “I’d be happy to,” I said. “But could we get some towels? And a medic? I’m in a fair amount of pain.”

  Knox snapped at Phillips. “Officer?”

  The young man’s face dropped, but he scampered off, regardless of how fiercely he wanted to hear my tale of derring-do.

  I took a seat and started with my descent into the sewers. It was an odd feeling. Sitting there, talking casually, surrounded by dead bodies, but all sense of normality had long since abandoned me. I’d killed a basilisk with a knife and a dead body dangling from a rope, for crying out loud.

  As I talked, Cairny inspected me. She wasn’t technically a medical doctor, but she knew enough about what could kill people to provide a diagnosis. I winced while describing the state I’d found the room we now sat in, and Cairny interrupted me during my description of the fight with the eight goons and the basilisk to inform me I’d probably broken a pair of metacarpals, something I already suspected.

  I finished with the events at Markeville’s manor, including Kyra’s unexpected assist and springing Steele from her cage. “…and once we got out, that’s when Bonesaw intercepted us again. As I already mentioned, it didn’t end well for him.”

  The Captain, Rodgers, and Quinto had listened carefully throughout my report. The Captain in particular looked somber.

  “We found the basilisk, as you already know,” she said. “We weren’t sure what it was, but Detective Quinto had his suspicions. You’re certain Mr. Markeville was only in command of one?”

  “No,” I said. “But the way he reacted to her death implied it.”

  Knox nodded. “That’s good. I can’t imagine the destruction that beast could’ve caused if let loose. We’re lucky as is that this is the worst that happened.”

  “With all respect, Captain, I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.”

  She shot a furrowed brow in my direction. “No?”

  “Markeville said I hadn’t stopped him. Said I couldn’t end what he’d already put in motion. That I was too late. I don’t think it was an idle boast.”

  “Is this more than a hunch?”

  “Bonesaw told me the same,” said Steele. “That his boss was keeping me alive to show us something terrible down the line. Bonesaw repeated the same suggestion before we dealt with him.”

  “Ah…excuse me? Captain?”

  I turned to see Phillips at the entrance, holding a stack of white cotton bath towels. They looked thin and scratchy, but they weren’t covered in blood. Another officer stood at his back, one I didn’t recognize.

  Knox waved him forward. “Bring them here. And the medic?”

  “About that…” said Phillips.

  The officer stepped forward. “Sir? We need to talk.”

  “It can wait,” said Knox. “What do you mean, you couldn’t find a medic? Surely there’s one here. Daggers needs attention. I’d like to have Detective Steele checked, too.”

  The officer persisted. “Sir, this can’t wait.”

  “Spit it out, then,” said Knox. “Make it quick.”

  “The district attorney, Captain,” he said. “He
’s dead.”

  33

  We sped past the city courthouse, its marble columns and shallow triangular topper still shining in the darkness of night, made bright white by the occasional flash of lightning. Phillips’ towels had provided only a brief respite, as the rain continued to fall, whipping around on an unnaturally strong breeze. With a clatter, we pulled to a stop before a tall apartment building that stretched toward the angry sky overhead.

  Shay and I hopped out of our cart, followed shortly by Quinto and Cairny in theirs, Rodgers and Captain Knox, and Phillips and the new guy, Officer Turtledove from the Grant Street Precinct. A couple of beat cops stood in the rain, a hearty bruiser and a heavyset one with a beard, none other than Poundstone and Gorman. They waited outside the apartment complex’s front door, but they didn’t brave the weather in an effort to flag us down or out a misguided sense of idealism. They were guarding the corpse.

  I found it face down on the concrete, surrounded by a pool of blood that was slowly being washed into the street by rain. For some reason, I imagined I’d find the DA as I’d seen him before, clad in an impeccable suit, wearing imported leather shoes and with his hair carefully combed with mousse, but death hadn’t spared him the indignity it did anyone else. He lay there in a white t-shirt and underpants, his hair plastered to his skull by the rain, his body broken and bent in impossible directions.

  I cursed under my breath as the Captain pushed past me. She knelt next to the body, stretched out a hand, and touched the side of the man’s face. “Oh, James…”

  She’d known him better than any of the rest of us. Far better. As a general rule, the Captain didn’t go out of her way to make friends. She didn’t want to spread a sense of favoritism among her charges, no matter how benign the interaction might be. The fact that she came to Quinto’s engagement party was surprising enough. He must’ve told her his intentions beforehand, despite whatever she’d said to the contrary. But District Attorney James Flint had been an exception. They’d had lunch on occasion, shared stories, and if the precinct’s bi-monthly bulletin blasts were at all accurate, traded ideas on how to improve the quality of policing and the effectiveness of prosecution. I imagine she viewed him as more than a co-worker.