by John Meaney
“Chef.”
They turned to look at Donal. He wondered if they could smell the burned-wood stench on his clothes.
“Police. You seen anything strange around here?”
“Um. No.” The chef looked at the others. “You?”
“No, Chef.”
Donal remembered the van driver saying he'd dropped off colleagues who were working here. None of these people were zombies.
“Have you got any—?” But then he felt something in his blood. Pointing to his left, he added: “The bakers are in there, am I correct?”
“Absolutely, but there's nothing strange in that.”
“No, of course not.”
Donal made a complete turn, taking in the gleaming utensils and work surfaces, the scents of gourmet food: a pot of bubbling bouillabaisse, a block of jellysquid pudding from which waving tendrils extended. One of the staff had paused in the middle of preparing what looked like a breakfast tray of cruciform pastries and strong coffee, despite the late hour.
“The Janaval has guests from all over the world.” The chef had noticed what Donal was looking at. “Even Lightsiders, who find it impossible to synchronize their sleep patterns with, uh, people who live … here.”
His voice trailed off, as if he'd only just noticed the paleness of Donal's skin.
“Don't let me disturb you.” Donal turned away, then looked back. “Maybe a pinch more salt in the fish stew.”
The doorman was standing there, waiting.
“What's your name?” asked Donal.
“Karlen, sir.”
“All right, Karlen. Can you hang around for a while? Just stay there.”
“Whatever you—”
Donal had already moved, rounding a corner of white-brick wall, finding himself before a steel door. He pushed down the handle and walked in, feeling the sensation—people like me—washing through his blood. Four zombies turned to look at him. All were wearing white.
Donal closed the door behind him.
“You work for Bertelloni's Bakery, right?” He held up his police badge. “Lieutenant Riordan.”
“Right.” One of the bakers stepped forward. “Has anything happened to Wilson?”
“He's the van driver? There's been an accident, but he's fine. A limousine went out of control, hit the van, then turned over. That's what it looks like.”
The four zombies looked at one another.
“I don't suppose,” added Donal, “you guys have seen anything strange down here?”
“Strange, Lieutenant?”
There might have been paw prints on the tiles. No telltale flickering of eyes showed in any of the zombies’ faces.
But then, it wouldn't, would it?
Probably not.
“We saw nothing,” added the spokesman.
He's lying.
I know.
One of the zombies held up the power cord he'd been holding.
“Is it okay to carry on?”
“That depends on whether you've anything to tell me.”
“We don't.”
Perhaps Donal should have brought his Magnus. Then he could have threatened to shoot them.
“All right,” he said.
The spokesman remained where he was, but the other three undid their tunics, pulled them open, then inserted their fingertips into their own chests. With a soft, liquid sound, three zombie chests opened at once, revealing three beating, glistening black hearts.
“You don't have to wait”—the spokesman pointed to Donal's watch—“until you're entirely depleted.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
The other three sat down cross-legged on the white-tiled floor. Now, as they played out the power cord, Donal saw that it branched, like the nine-tailed whip some of the nuns had used in the orphanage, back when Donal was young. The man nearest the wall plugged in one end, then inserted a lead into his heart, and closed his eyes. The next zombie plugged himself in, and then the next.
“That was an invitation, Lieutenant. Please join us.”
“Some other time.”
“Ah.”
From standing, the spokesman descended in a corkscrew motion to the floor, not using his hands, ending up in a cross-legged position like his colleagues. He unfastened his tunic.
I've offended them.
But the spokesman paused before looking up, and said: “You've been near Chazley Hardieson, I can tell. His aftershave is unusual.”
Officer Cordoza had identified the dead man in the limo as Hardieson.
“Did you see him this evening?”
“Not today. But he's a regular at the hotel. Watch yourself with him, Lieutenant.”
“Why should I do that?”
“You've heard of the Unity Party. They have some rich sponsors.”
“And Hardieson's one of them?”
But the zombie was already plugging himself in, using the same branching cord as the others. Soon, all four were sitting with eyes closed, their black hearts beating in time, their bodies otherwise still.
Donal watched them for a moment, then another, before rousing himself and walking across the tiles to the faint outline he saw there. Paw prints, yes. But they led to a wall. Straight into a wall. And there was something else….
What's this?
At chest height, there was a—feeling? vibration? that was familiar to Donal.
A wraith has been here.
Even living, Donal had gotten on with wraiths, just as he knew the name of every deathwolf at HQ. Perhaps it was simply his attitude, but by being sensitive to the presence of wraiths, there had been times when if a wraith approached from behind, he knew who it was before they manifested themselves in front of him, or spoke inside his mind.
Now he was almost sure he recognized whatever trace remained in the brickwork.
Xalia.
He hadn't even realized she'd been up to leaving HQ, not after what she'd been through.
She was tracking the wolf.
But Donal had no way of going through walls … except to use the very ordinary door ten feet away. He went through, into a service corridor. Two, no, three paw prints showed on the floor. They headed straight into the opposite wall.
There was no trace of Xalia here. It was as though she'd started to follow through, then pulled back. As for the wall that the prints led to …
Donal put his hands against it.
Solid.
He would need to check the building plans to be sure, but his intuition told him that beyond this wall was nothing but impenetrable earth. Perhaps if he called in help from HQ before the traces disappeared, he could get a sniffer wraith to follow.
When he looked down again, the paw prints had evaporated from the floor.
“Shit.”
No doubt, when he went back into the kitchen, the prints would have disappeared from there as well.
Ten minutes later, Donal was back on the street. The ambulance had gone, and a lobster truck was using its claw to raise the wrecked limo from the pavement. Officer Cordoza and Sergeant Tsatslinx approached him.
“Find anything, Lieutenant?” asked the sergeant.
“Nothing.”
“That's what we thought. Whatever the van driver thought he saw, maybe it was a firework or something that distracted Hardieson's man, turned the car over.”
“It didn't look like the van driver's fault.”
“No, it wasn't.” Sergeant Tsatslinx glanced toward Potbelly Frank. “And that's how we're writing it up, Lieutenant. Just another TTA.”
“Yeah.” Donal realized that Cordoza was staring at him. “Good work, Officer.”
“Thank you … sir.”
So she suspected he knew something. Too bad, because Donal wasn't about to share what he'd learned and guessed. Because it was task force business? Or because the dead man had been in the Unity Party, and an enemy of zombiekind?
Of my kind.
“D'you need a lift anywhere, Lieutenant?”
“That
would be—No. Thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Thanks, but you guys need to clear the scene. Carry on keeping the streets safe.”
“We can do that.”
Donal watched from the sidewalk as the bakery van drove off, followed by the lumbering lobster truck, and finally the police cruisers. More pedestrians came onto the sidewalk. Soon, everyone would have forgotten what had just occurred: just another Tristopolitan tale among millions.
He turned, and went back inside the Janaval Hotel. Karlen the doorman hurried over.
“Sir? Was there something else?”
“A couple of things. Do you know a Mr. Hardieson?”
“Oh, yes. Dines here regularly. Used to come with a gentleman called, um, Dr. Carlendo, I think it was.”
For the second time since his resurrection, Donal discovered dark blood could run cold.
“Well dressed, silk cravat, gray hair, goatee?”
“That's the gentleman.”
Cortindo.
“And you've not seen this other guy recently?”
“Not for months, sir.”
Probably not since Donal had killed the bastard. He doubted whether Malfax Cortindo, since his resurrection as a revenant, had returned to any of his old public haunts. He probably hadn't come back to Tristopolis at all.
A pity.
Donal stared at the plush lobby and the corridor beyond, with its row of gleaming boutiques, right here in the hotel.
“You guys have a men's tailor here?”
“Um … certainly.” Karlen's eyes flickered toward Donal's running suit. “Um, everything's rather … rarefied, sir.”
“I'll bet.”
Donal reached inside his wallet, and pulled out a white credit card. Until inheriting Laura's wealth, he'd had no idea such things existed. But a hotel doorman should know what the gleaming white card represented.
“Oh. I didn't… Sir.”
In less than a minute, they were standing inside a hushed tailor's shop, and the proprietor was summoning a wraith to take Donal's measurements.
“And what is it that sir would like exactly?”
“A new suit. Probably a shirt and tie, the whole works.”
“For what kind of occasion, might one ask?”
“Something suitable for City Hall.”
“City Hall?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow morning”—Donal checked his watch—“I'll be shaking hands with Mayor Dancy.”
“Most excellent. The mayor buys his suits right here. Come, let me show you some fabrics.”
The wraith wrapped itself around Donal, measuring, then drifted off.
“Oh, about the cut of the suit…” said Donal.
“I'd recommend a conservative style for City Hall.”
“Yeah, and it needs to conceal a gun.”
“Certainly, a … gun?”
“Big one. Magnus.” Donal held an imaginary firearm under his left arm. “Fits right here.”
“Um … of course, sir. Splendid.”
“Maybe a special inside pocket for a spare clip.”
“A … clip, sir?”
“Thing with bullets, you know?”
The tailor pulled out a silk handkerchief, and dabbed his forehead.
“Certainly. Any other special requirements, sir?”
“I was thinking it could be dark blue. Or should it be gray?”
“Perhaps sir could—”
“Maybe one of each.”
“Of course. Whatever sir would like.”
At one A.M., Kyushen Jyu decided he wasn't going back to sleep, at least not soon. He rolled from his low cot into a kneeling position on the floor, and stood up. Soft displays shone and moved inside the lab, along with the pervasive hum of working systems, a sound he normally found relaxing.
“It's the neural association,” he told himself. “Nothing more.”
Police HQ was now permanently linked in his mind to those awful events in the interrogation room, the prisoner trapped in eternal, accidental trance by Kyushen's own devices. The displays had contained a masterful excavation of the man's mind, with scrolling frameworks of golden script delineating thought-feeling-memory structures, within the modeling paradigm of Image-Inclined Hexing. Templates and metatemplates, instants conforming to adaptive patterns—all of it was perfect, and none of it mattered as they carried the man out.
“The lieutenant said I'll be reading a manual.” Kyushen was aware of his own voice quavering. “Nothing more.”
Pulling on a lab coat, he went out barefoot, into a quiet corridor. There was a staircase nearby, and Kyushen went up it slowly, climbing three floors, and coming out into the corridor that linked the Acute Ensorcellment Ward to Psychomantic Counseling. There would be Night Sisters on duty.
“Hello, Dr. Jyu.” It was Sister Felice, one of the prettiest Night Sisters, who greeted him. “Nice to see you at this time.”
“Just a small bout of sleeplessness, nothing more.”
“You want some tea?”
“I'm not sure. Yes, okay.”
She fetched a mug of tea from the nurses’ station, and handed it to him, smiling.
“Tell me about it, if you like.”
“What? Oh. You treated Lieutenant Riordan, didn't you?”
Her colleague, Sister Lynkse, was suddenly standing nearby. Kyushen hadn't noticed her approach, but he wasn't startled. He was used to Night Sisters.
“Donal Riordan,” said Sister Felice. “I was his primary nurse.”
“Uh-huh.” Sister Lynkse hummed softly, then: “And she was a little smitten, as you doubtless realized.”
“Um.” Kyushen blinked. “Sorry. I didn't—”
“Ignore Lynnie. What about Donal Riordan?”
“I did some … work for him. A few weeks back.”
“Prisoner interrogation,” said Sister Lynkse. “Accidentally inducing Basilisk Trance. I heard about it.”
Sister Felice raised her fine eyebrows.
“He wants me to do more work.” Kyushen stared at the mug in his hands. “Just technical advice, see. Translating jargon, explaining concepts. Should I have agreed to it?”
“You talked to him on the phone?”
“Yeah, and I'm seeing him tomorrow. Today, I mean. This morning.”
“How did he sound?” asked Sister Felice.
Sister Lynkse smiled.
“Like an integrated personality.” Kyushen slipped automatically into his professional role. “Strong, but obviously different from before.”
“In what fashion?”
“Excuse me? You know what happened to him, don't you?”
“You mean the fact he's now a zombie?”
“With Commander Steele's heart inside him,” said Sister Lynkse.
“What a bitch.” Sister Felice's gaze swung back to Kyushen. “His luck, I mean. Not the dead commander.”
Kyushen looked at her.
“Sure,” he said.
At two A.M., the assassin rose briefly to a shallow trance, checked his watch by feel, listened, and opened his sensitivity to touch, to vibration, polling the environment for anomalies that might indicate his presence here was known.
Nothing manifested itself in his hypersensitive perceptions.
Motionless beneath his chameleon shroud, the assassin slowed his breathing once more to a level that would make him appear almost dead. A calming, silent automesmeric mantra caused his heart rate to decrease. He was deep inside trance.
In nine hours, it would be time to snap awake, filled with alertness and energy, with implacable resolution, and the desire to prove once again that he was among the best at what he did.
At three A.M., Viktor walked from Seven Blades, a Pneumetro station on the Purple Line, to the street where he lived. He'd stayed at HQ even longer than Harald, but finally—in the absence of news about Xalia—he'd decided to go home, half hoping that a gang of street youths, or perhaps even a more professional armed robber, would see him as a potential victim en rout
e. But there had been no opportunities to vent his stress in the way he did best.
Here, though, on a street lined with old tenements, where few cars were parked, a black—no, dark burgundy—limousine waited. Viktor shrugged inside his leather coat, loosening his shoulders, freeing access to his holstered twin Grausers. Then he crossed the street, to the opposite side from his home.
The driver's door cracked open just as Viktor reached the cover of a rusted old Cosma Breeze. He ducked low, then threw himself into a sideways roll, coming up into a kneeling position with one Grauser drawn.
“Hey, is that you, Viktor?” The voice was slow, a little slurred, and half-familiar. “It's me, Andre.”
“Huh.” Viktor rose far enough to see the bearded face. “You're out of your neighborhood.”
“Uh, well, I was waiting for you.”
“I'd never have guessed.”
“I know. Say, aren't you supposed to live on this side of the street?”
“You haven't changed,” muttered Viktor, stepping clear of the Cosma. “You're not here by yourself, I wouldn't think.”
Andre had forced his bulk out, opening the door wide to do so, showing Viktor that there was no one else in the front of the limo. The solid black windows revealed nothing about who might be riding in back. But Viktor had heard rumors about Andre's new employer.
Then a window rolled down, revealing a lined face, and coiffed white hair in which several diamonds glinted. Her clear eyes focused on Viktor.
“You can relax, Detective Harman.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Reaching into his pocket, Viktor found his shades. “Let me come over.”
He slipped on the glasses as he neared the limo.
“I just wanted to talk to you for a spell,” the woman said.
Viktor's motion faltered.
“Sorry, Detective. Put it down to an old lady's sense of humor.”
“Ma'am.”
“You know what my interest is. How is he doing?”
“I don't know who—” Viktor growled, then shrugged. “All right. Look, your interest may be obvious. It's also a bit late, don't you think?”
“Viktor Harman.”
Shaking his head, Viktor took a step back, one hand shielding his eyes, the other still holding a Grauser.
“Relax. I agree with you, Viktor. Even I can have regrets, you know.”
“Can you help a wraith in distress?”