Black Blood

by John Meaney

  “Loot! Bleeding Thanat—I mean, good to see you, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah. How're you doing, Brian?”

  “Um, okay. Everything's still legit, and I mean totally.”

  Donal had called Internal Security to investigate, having warned Brian so he could get rid of the illegal target sheets—depicting real individuals—and subsequently threatened him, suspecting that he'd been selling ammunition privately. But it seemed long ago, like a memory of school days.

  “I just want to practice.”

  “Oh. Sure. Say, eight targets, eighty rounds?”

  “How about thirteen targets, seven hundred rounds.” Donal wasn't quite sure why he'd specified such numbers. “It's been a while. I'll probably miss the things completely for the first half hour.”

  Over fifty rounds per target ought to destroy them, which was not the point: accuracy was the objective. But the numbers felt right to Donal.

  “If you say so.” Brian turned to the shelves, pulled out standard man-size paper silhouettes, and laid them on the counter. “One moment, and I'll fetch the shells.”

  More gunfire sounded, echoing along ancient stone tunnels.

  “You seen Viktor Harman?” asked Donal.

  “Say what?”

  “Viktor Harman. Big guy, leather coat probably, round blue shades. Wears a Grauser under each arm.”

  “Oh, yeah. Big Viktor. Cross-draw fiend.”

  That was Viktor. In customized shoulder holsters, he wore stubby machine pistols as if they were ordinary handguns. He could rip the twin weapons from their holsters in an instant.

  “He's the one I mean.”

  “Haven't seen him for days.”

  “Never mind. Gimme the shells.”

  Brian disappeared around back, and returned with seven small boxes.

  “Last time, Big Viktor blew every target into shreds.” Brian put the ammunition down on the counter. “Have fun now, you hear?”

  “I will,” said Donal.

  He grabbed the targets and ammo, and headed down the corridor. It formed a long gallery, with the shooting lanes off to the right. Donal continued, wanting to get as far away as possible from the few officers practicing at this time.

  A lean man with cropped gray hair, wearing a black T-shirt and combat trousers, stepped into Donal's path. The rangemaster, Eagle Dawkins.

  “Hey, Donal. Are you coping with everything?”

  Dawkins had been one of the handful of cops who'd attended Laura's funeral. A zombie burial was never high-profile.

  “ Coping is the right word.”

  “You'll be able to remain calm. Commander Steele didn't practice much, but she knew how to keep control.”

  Donal noted the implied command, realizing that Dawkins was professionally responsible for range safety. Dawkins had also known Laura in both aspects of her existence, as a living human and then a zombie. Donal wondered how Laura's shooting had changed after resurrection, but he killed the impulse to ask.

  “I'll remember that,” he said.

  “Let me walk with you.”

  “Sure.”

  It took a minute to reach the farthest shooting lane, where Donal sent the first target all the way back to the end of the firing lane. Then he thumbed bullets into a magazine clip, and set it on the shelf beside him.

  Eagle Dawkins said nothing as Donal took out his Magnus, ejected the current clip, checked it, slammed it back in. It was only when Donal pulled the slide back that Dawkins spoke.

  “You're not going to turn the lights on?”

  “Huh?” Donal looked up. “I hadn't realized.”

  He flicked a switch, one of three on the wall beside him, so that low red bulbs glimmered.

  “Commander Steele occasionally liked to make things difficult for herself. She was never the kind of shot you are, though.”

  “Maybe she thought a commander has other skills to develop.”

  “I agree. That wasn't a criticism.”

  “All right,” said Donal.

  Then he whipped up his pistol and pulled the trigger thirteen times—crack, crack, crack—before lowering the weapon. Ignoring the spent casings, he ejected the magazine and slammed in the spare, bringing the weapon up to aim once more. Then he lowered it without firing.

  “Good.” Dawkins nodded. “Very good.”

  In some precincts, rangemasters forced officers to pick up their shell casings when they shot. It made for tidy ranges. It also made for dead cops, when they reacted under mortal stress by reflex, and stopped to pocket discarded shells when they should have been returning fire.

  Dawkins pressed the button that caused the target sheet to come whirring back. There was a single large hole in the silhouette's heart.

  “Must have gone wide,” murmured Dawkins. “Except that's an awful big hole. What kind of rounds are you shooting?”

  “Same as these.” Donal pointed toward the bullets on the shelf. “Chitin-piercing, standard load.”

  “That's not… I've never seen that before.”

  Donal wondered how many zombie officers practiced here.

  “I'm rusty,” he said. “I guess I only hit it once.”

  “Huh. With other folk, you might get away with that story.” Eagle Dawkins tapped the side of his nose. “You want me to peddle that tale to everyone else, then I'll do it.”

  “Sorry,” said Donal. “I've no idea what you're talking about.”

  “Yeah, you do. You put every round right through the center. No one can cluster their shots that closely, and I mean no one.”

  “Things change.”

  Like Laura dying.

  Dawkins looked down the length of the firing lane. Then he nodded to Donal.

  “Take care of yourself, Lieutenant. Call me if you need anything.”

  He pointed to the black wall-mounted telephone.

  “Yeah,” said Donal. “Thanks.”

  After Dawkins had left, Donal took the paper target down from the overhead clip. The hole was almost perfectly circular. Had Laura not had this ability? Or had she chosen to hide what she could do? For sure, no living human could fire thirteen rounds through the same point with so little deviation.

  Perhaps I'm not human at all.

  Donal fastened another target to the clip, and sent it whining back down the lane, wondering if he could do the same in darkness.

  He switched the lights off, and raised his gun.

  From time to time, Alexa experienced headaches, which very occasionally grew into full-fledged migraines. Usually, a lukewarm bath and a pot of helebore tea were all she needed to make things right.

  Something was thumping behind her right eye as she stared up at the floating sign. It consisted of ceramic letters rather than flame-script, held in place by necromagnetic induction. Alexa could see the faint outline of coils embedded in the ceiling.

  ~CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP BUREAU~

  Behind a reception desk, a pretty female officer stood up and held out her hand.

  “Hi, I'm Cindy. How can I help?”

  The department had been called Customer Relations. Was Customer Relationship Bureau supposed to sound more professional? Alexa wished she weren't here.

  “Detective Ceerling.” She opened her jacket to show the shield fastened to her waistband. “I thought I might spend a short time here, see what you guys are up to.”

  The commissioner had said to leave his name out of it.

  “I'm curious,” she added. “And my team's got a little downtime, so today's a good opportunity.”

  “In that case”—Cindy's smile revealed beautiful teeth—“please go right through. I'll call someone to show you around.”

  She reached with one manicured hand for the indigo telephone on her desk.

  “No need. I'll see you later, Cindy.”

  “Great!” Her voice was so cheerful. “I look forward to it, Detective.”

  Alexa's headache gave a thump as she walked through the internal door, and came out into an open office space.
It was large, about the size of the Surveillance Department, but more brightly lit. Several coffeepots stood on a metal table, beneath which flamesprites danced. Alexa helped herself to a cup, taking her time, looking around.

  The desks were polished. The telephone handsets—all of them colored indigo, like Cindy's, rather than the usual black—also looked clean. Most of the staff were in plainclothes, all with sharply ironed shirts and improbably bright smiles.

  “Thanatos,” she murmured. “What a place.”

  Grinning all the time and being forever nice to people. Not her idea of a job.

  “Uh, ma'am? May I assist you in any way?”

  This was a male officer, as young and perfectly turned out as Cindy at the front desk.

  “Detective Ceerling, just taking a look around.” Alexa sipped her coffee, intending it as a covering gesture. “Wow. That tastes really nice.”

  “Thank you, Detective. We keep everything pleasant here, so that when we talk to people”—he gestured to the banks of phones, to the smiling officers talking on them—“we don't need to playact. ‘Sin cerity is saintly,’ we like to say.”

  Alexa lowered her coffee, and thought about pouring it over the guy's head. But that wasn't what Commissioner Vilnar had in mind.

  Behind the young officer, a phone rang; a dark-skinned man sitting at the desk picked it up.

  “I'm Ted Chelton, Officer Ted Chelton. Can I help?” There was a pause, then Chelton said: “Mrs. Arrowsmith, if that had happened to me, I can tell you I'd be upset”—in fact, his tone was a little strident already—“but you can rest assured”—with a lowering tonality, a slower rhythm—“we'll look into the possibility that someone might have dropped evidence that didn't belong to your son, surely by accident.”

  Alexa found herself fascinated by Chelton's changing voice. The other officer, smiling, murmured: “I'll leave you to it.”

  Nodding as he left, Alexa continued to listen to Chelton. Hearing just his side of the conversation, she could appreciate the man's skill. The caller had started off angry, but Chelton hadn't tried to use the kind of calm voice that an upset person would find infuriating. Instead, he'd grown annoyed on the caller's behalf—then slowly and subtly formed an alliance with her, before altering his tone until it became relaxing.

  “—and I hope your knee is much better soon. Yes. Bye-bye, Mrs. Arrowsmith.”

  He hung up.

  Alexa stared for a moment, then remembered the coffee cup in her hand, and refreshed it from the nearest pot. Did the commissioner expect her to hone her public relation skills in this place, or was something else going on? For sure, even though every cop learned verbal de-escalation skills at the Academy, she was pretty sure not even the instructors could have handled an irate call as well as this Chelton had done.

  All around her in the call center, Chelton's colleagues appeared to be responding to equally challenging calls with equally exquisite skill.

  Rubbing her forehead where the ache was beginning to intensify, Alexa wondered what she was supposed to do next.

  “Hello there.” A nearby officer was holding out an indigo headset, like a radio operator's, which was attached to a telephone of the same color. “Would you like to listen in to a call? Hear both sides of what's going on?”

  “Why … yes. I'm pretty sure I would.”

  “Take a seat, and we'll wait.”

  Alexa sat down beside the man, getting the headset comfortable around her ears. She rubbed her forehead again, then waited. It took less than a minute before a switchboard operator put a call through.

  “My name,” said the caller, “is Eldred Colbridge, and I want to complain about the house next door. My local precinct does nothing about it. Parties at all hours, and even though I'm a pensioner, I still need my sleep, don't I?”

  “Absolutely right,” the officer beside Alexa responded. “You do. My name's Zajal, by the way. So tell me about these neighbors.”

  “They moved in a month ago….”

  As the call continued, Alexa became aware of the real sympathy in Zajal's voice, the painstaking way in which he recorded the factual details on a lilac notepad, and the masterful fashion in which he mollified and then cheered up the caller, old Mr. Colbridge, who rang off sounding as if he'd regained some zest in life.

  Finally, Zajal put down the handset, and Alexa removed the earphones.

  “That was amazing.” She reached up to her forehead, then lowered her hand, and gave a wide smile. “I mean, really expert.”

  “Thanks. Of course, when you're being sympathetic, you have to mean it, because—”

  “ ‘Sincerity is saintly,’ right?”

  “That's exactly right.” Zajal grinned at her. “And how do you feel? Because you were the tiniest bit peaky when you came in, weren't you?”

  “Oh, did you notice?” Alexa held up both her hands. “I'm feeling wonderful now. You and your colleagues must be working miracles here.”

  “We like to think so, Detective.”

  The phone on Zajal's desk rang once more.

  “Did you want to listen in again? Then maybe even answer a call yourself?”

  Alexa stared at the indigo phone. She had a desk elsewhere, but that was empty, and not nearly as interesting. And the thought of what Zajal was suggesting—

  “Do you really think I could?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Zajal. “You'll be a natural.”

  The establishment was called Pies'n’Trolls, its name painted in curlicued script on a black panel above the window. It was a basic eatery, a greasy spoon on a nondescript street in Lower Halls, a working-class district whose inhabitants were mostly—but not all—standard human. The owner, Jacko, was five feet tall but four feet wide, with scaled leathery skin and massive arms, currently holding a plate piled high with blossom salad, heavy on the saffronbells, edelschwartz, and purpledrops.

  “Got your favorite, Sergeant.”

  “Thanks, Jacko. You shouldn't have.”

  “Yeah, I should.” Jacko put down the plate. “So I don't suppose you remember Tweenie?”

  Harald Hammersen blinked once as he mentally sifted through details of Jacko's family, including all twenty-three grandchildren.

  “Of course I do,” he said. “She'll be, what, seven by now?”

  “Exactly right.” Jacko's leathery face crinkled and folded as he smiled. “She's the star of her junior flyball team too. Wouldya credit that?”

  “That's so hard to believe. Remember the night she was born?”

  “Ha.” Jacko grinned at the few other occupied tables, and some of the regulars looked up and smiled back. “Night the Barwell Spiders won the pennant. Like I'd forget.”

  Then he used one great spatulate finger to tap the black folder that Harald had placed on the table. On it was a logo, colored indigo, in the form of a stylized telephone.

  “You undercover, my friend?”

  “Yeah, but nothing deep. Just—”

  Harald broke off. From the rear of the diner, an unshaven man—not a regular—waved a hand, calling out: “Waiter? If you would.”

  “Where does he think he is?” muttered Jacko. “The fucking Five Seasons?”

  “He's a customer.” Harald's voice was as mild as his appearance.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jacko raised his voice. “Coming, ya buttwipe.”

  The unshaven man swallowed as Jacko came lumbering toward his table.

  “Um … I was just wondering … ” His finger trembled as he pointed at the greasy menu. “I'd like, er … ”

  “Reptile eggs are off,” Jacko growled. “So whaddya want?”

  “Er … ”

  Harald forked saffronbell petals into his mouth, closing his eyes briefly. The fragrant taste swelled in his senses. It was good to sit in his old pal's establishment, which seemed to be doing all right, despite Jacko's charming way with strangers.

  Taking hold of the black folder, Harald shifted it from the table to his seat, leaving it where others could not se
e. He had no idea how long the assignment was going to take, although Commander Bowman seemed to expect him to finish in a single day.

  By the time Jacko returned to the table, Harald had cleared the plate except for one half petal. The discipline of leave-a-little.

  “I'll be back in a couple of hours,” said Harald. “With a friend. Someone I've arranged to meet.”

  “Whoa. What's she like?” Jacko's immense hands sketched an hourglass shape. “And does she go for older guys? A bit of rough?”

  Jacko was married to an orange-skinned woman, heavier than him, and the holder of the Tristopolitan ladies’ bench-press record in the over-forties age group. In twenty-five years of marriage, he had never been unfaithful. He and his wife laughed a lot.

  “He,” said Harald, “has stone eyes, my friend.”

  “Ah. Then I'll make him feel at home.”

  Harald slipped out of the booth, and grabbed the black folder with the indigo phone logo.

  “Don't take no wooden florins, pal.”

  Jacko saluted, one fingertip clacking against the hard skin of his brow.

  “Beat it, Harald, ya bum.”

  Folder in hand, Harald looked around the fourth-floor landing. Outside, in an alleyway, he'd watched three black lizards fight over the glistening remains of a rat. Here, things were clean enough. Someone had been using disinfectant spray, and the scent lingered. The dark-green linoleum was wrinkled, but frequent polishing had kept it free of cracks. The stairway treads and banisters were formed from brown magnabeetle chitin, ugly but recently washed. There were worse places to live.

  He opened the folder, checked an entry on a typewritten list, then knocked on the door of apartment 19.

  It took a while to open.

  “Hello?” A sixty-something woman looked up at him. “Who are you?”

  “Morning, ma'am.” Harald shifted the folder so she could see the indigo-phone logo. “I'm just conducting a quality check, to see how satisfied you've been with our service.”

  “Well, you're a polite fellow. Come in and drink some coffee while you ask your questions.”

  “There's no need to—”

  But the woman was already heading inside, leaving the door open. Harald shook his head. She'd not even asked to see ID.