Black Blood
Page 24
“Sometimes”—Harald's voice went soft, and moved to a certain cadence and ambiguous syntax—“it is good … to be alone and … resourceful, of confidence, remembering how it feels to be filled … with strength…. Now, here … to regain control. In. Your. Life. Now.”
The woman's eyelids were fluttering.
“Good.” Harald checked that the bartender wasn't watching. “To have. Confidence.”
Then the woman sucked in a deep breath, her eyes opening wide. She stared at her glass, took one tiny sip, then put the glass down as she stood up.
She walked past Harald, not even glancing at him. Her expression, so disconnected before, was hardening with focus. She went out into the street, looking ready to face the rest of her life, and take control of it.
It was Harald's good deed for the day, if he'd done it right.
“You miserable fuckers just love your hexzookas and wraith-propelled grenades, don't ya?” he remembered Psychmaster Lerdban yelling as the recruits began the penultimate phase of Marine Corps training. “But there ain't no WPG or sniper round that compares with the weapon you got right in there.”
It had been the young Harald Hammersen whose forehead Lerdban's finger jabbed into.
“When I've finished with you snot-slime boogers, you'll be able to lock and load your brain faster than you can pull your trigger. Got that, you testosterone-soaked worms?”
“Yes, sir!” the class had responded, and Harald's voice had been as loud as anyone's.
As it turned out, Lerdban had not exaggerated.
Viktor Harman had a family history of law enforcement. More precisely, his father, mother, uncles, and grandparents had all been gang enforcers, all in trouble with the law. As a police officer, he was on his own. He liked to think that he brought his family's finest traditions into the world of policing.
As for what Harald had learned in the Marines, Viktor wasn't entirely sure. He knew that Jack Capers was in for a rough evening if he tried to get violent with Harald. Ideally, Harald would get out of the way of any attack, and allow Capers to make a bolt for it, so Viktor could track him.
Viktor's observation post was an alleyway half a block across from Monazen Iona. Directly overhead was a stone ledge on which an old worn gargoyle perched. It shifted with a tiny creak, but made no move to pounce.
“Nice day for it,” muttered Viktor. “You okay up there?”
The gargoyle was still.
Viktor rubbed his chin, conscious of the weight of the twin Grausers beneath his arms. This had the makings of a ruinous day: frightening the shit out of a fellow officer, possibly interrogating him. That was the kind of thing that Internal Security did, and everyone knew that IS were bastards.
In his left hand, Viktor held a dull yellow callstone. Harald had one like it, and if either man pressed his, the other stone would light up. The real use was so Harald could let Viktor know when Jack Capers was on the move. So far—
There. On the other side of the street, a man with a reddish goatee was standing outside Monazen Iona, looking up at the flamewraiths. He was an exact match for Harald's description.
Viktor pressed the callstone.
Inside the bar, the stone in Harald's grip glowed yellow, then faded. Harald slipped it into his pocket, turning to the entrance just as Jack Capers came in.
“What do you want to drink, Jack?”
“Is that coldfire brandy?”
“Sure is.”
“I'll go for that, then.”
“I guess you heard the man,” Harald told the bartender. “And I'll have another, please.”
“Sure thing.”
After the bartender brought the drinks, Harald pointed to an empty booth. “Probably more comfortable over there. Easier to chat.” He picked up both glasses.
“Sure,” said Capers. “The other guys, are they here yet?”
“Not yet. Let me give you the lowdown on 'em.”
As they slid into the booth, Harald kept an eye on the bartender and the few other drinkers here in the front bar. No one was watching as Capers sat and leaned toward the glass that Harald had set down. As Capers reached, Harald brought his fingertips gently down on Capers's eyelids, and said one word: “Sleep.”
Capers's chin dropped to his chest.
“That's right,” Harald said. “As you feel so comfortable … relaxing down … time to slow … down between heartbeats …”
As the verbal induction continued, Capers breathed so shallowly he appeared comatose, already deep in trance. He'd dropped faster and deeper than almost anyone Harald had worked on.
“You're standing at the back of a theater.” Harald had the poor bastard in deep trance; now it was time to make use of it. “And you can see yourself sitting in a seat. And that Jack Capers is seeing himself onstage, talking to colleagues.”
In trance, hallucinations would be as compelling as reality. It was important to keep Capers dissociated from the imagined events about to unfold.
“One of the officers is asking about the indigo phones, and I'm wondering, what do you say to him in reply?”
“Nothing,” mumbled Capers, eyes still closed.
“And they ask more questions, and what do you reply?”
“Nothing.”
“That's right,” said Harald, “and then they bring out scanning apparatus, and what do you do next?”
“Kill them.”
“That's … right. And what then?”
“Run.”
“You run, Jack, and where do you run to?”
“Charcroft Depths. The old brewery.”
“And what then? Do you contact anybody?”
“No. Wait. Only wait.”
“Good.” Harald paused, let out a breath. “That's very good. And you can relax now, and let the images fade, and remember a time when you were relaxed and felt good. That's it. Remember how it felt, intensify the feeling…. Good. And now, as I count backwards from nine to one, you can awaken….”
As Harald counted, Capers breathed more deeply, slowly raised his chin, blinked as the count reached four, then took in a deep breath and opened his eyes wide.
Harald said: “One, and how do you feel now?”
“Great. I almost nodded off for a moment, but I feel great.”
“Good.” Harald raised his glass. “To Customer Relationships.”
“And motivation.”
They clinked glasses.
“It looks like the others have gone straight to the restaurant,” said Harald. “Damn. Good brandy. Glad we had time for a drink first.”
“I thought you said the others would be here. Senior officers, right?”
“Uh-huh. We usually meet here first unless we're running late, but the real goal is going for a curry. There's a place around the corner called Fire in the Hole, which believe it or not is a trendy establishment.”
“I've heard of it.” Capers grinned, as he had in the call center. “Shall we go now?”
“Let's do that.”
As they passed the bar, Harald left a handful of florin coins, including a decent but not a too-generous tip for the bartender. So far things could not have gone better, but there was no point in making himself memorable.
Capers held the door for him as they went out.
“Which way?” he asked.
“Right along here.”
Harald led the way, noting the way Capers matched pace, but just behind him, and then Capers's hand disappeared inside his jacket—
“No!”
—and that was when the evening went to Hades.
Viktor watched Jack Capers reach toward his left hip, heard Harald's shout, knew that the ex-Marine could probably snatch the weapon before it went off, but also knew that probably wasn't good enough when your colleague's life was in danger, not to mention innocent civilians in the background.
He used his right hand only, employing his left to pull the jacket open, sacrificing the second Grauser's firepower for speed. The weapon came out smoothly fro
m the holster.
Harald swept his right hand down toward the enemy's gun—in that instant in Harald's mind, Capers was a dehumanized thing that faced him, not a human being, because there could be no hesitation—and he was inside the arc of movement, beginning the throat punch with his left, when an explosion happened.
Blood and flesh and fragments of bone sprayed from Jack Capers's shoulder, and he dropped.
They got clear as fast as possible. First, Harald grabbed a passerby, a large man wearing a bright red-and-silver spidersilk tie, and led him to the prone Capers. Viktor was already kneeling there.
“Take over,” said Viktor. “Press here.”
“P-Press … ?”
“Relax,” Harald told the man. “Down. Press. Remain.”
“All … right.”
“You.” Harald pointed at a couple, then zeroed in on the wife, who looked calmer. “Dial threes, sixes, and nines and ask for an ambulance. In there, that bar. Where the red flamewraiths are.”
“Yes.” The woman tugged her husband. “Come on.”
Viktor backed off, then Harald simply crossed the street, away from the other spectators, who looked incapable of moving. Harald moved faster when he reached a side street, and came out onto 253rd, where Viktor was already standing in a shop doorway.
“Harald. Did I make the right call?”
“Only if you wanted to save my life, buddy.”
“Yeah.”
They walked together, heading for the corner where an amber P sign indicated a Pneumetro station. No one called out as they descended the iron stairs to the grimy hypoway.
As they waited on a platform, Harald murmured: “It was my fault. He seemed to come out of trance fine. No memory of the experience.”
“You triggered something deep?”
“I guess. Shit. I hope he lives. The bleeding looked under control.”
“He already worked behind a desk,” said Viktor. “He'll be able to carry on with that.”
Vibration shook the stonework all around. Then, behind the scratched glass barrier, the train pulled in.
“So where are we going?” said Viktor. “I mean, after we've changed lines a few times.”
They climbed on board the nearest ovoid carriage. Neither man saw anyone following them. Passengers got off, got on, none paying special attention or trying too hard to be unnoticeable.
“Capers said—in trance—that if questioned, he would kill his interrogators—”
“Thanatos.”
“—and run to Charcroft Depths, to the old brewery.”
“I don't know the neighborhood well,” said Viktor, “but isn't the brewery derelict?”
A massive pneumatic pulse pushed the carriages into motion.
Neither man spoke for the next four stops, as the carriages split from each other and took different branches off the Orange Line. The fifth station was a major nexus, and Harald and Viktor silently alighted together. They took a Magenta Line train, rode it southbound for three stops, then changed lines once more. Several more changes, and they finally came to Blackweb Pentangle, an old station in need of repainting and retiling.
They climbed the exit steps, and came out at the edge of the small black spider-inhabited park the station was named for. The houses around the Pentangle's outer rim were five-story, originally family homes for the well-to-do, long since divided into single-room studios with communal bathrooms.
“I think the brewery's that way,” said Harald.
“All right.”
Ten minutes later, they were walking through the ruins of an old building that had once been proud to produce Farsight Ale. Now the big signs were gray and faded. One had fallen to the broken ground.
“You noticing anything with those highly trained Marine per ceptions?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“Old bricks, dirt, smashed windows. Like that.”
“Uh-huh.” Viktor pointed to a plump woman, her head wrapped in a scarf, pushing a baby carriage. “Let's ask about Capers.”
The woman tensed as they walked over, then loosened a little as Harald gave his best good-cop smile.
“Hi, ma'am. We're just wondering if anyone knows a friend of ours, name of Jack Capers.”
“Sorry.”
“Never mind. I don't suppose you'd know who to ask?”
“There's a small store thataway, that's been there for—Oh, there's Mrs. Hatchet. She's lived here for Death knows how long.”
“Thanks.”
They crossed the street to ask. When the old woman, Mrs. Hatchet, heard Jack Capers's name, she shook her head.
“Young Jack,” she said. “I haven't seen him in such a long time.”
“He'd be about thirty-five, ma'am.”
“Yes, Young Jack, that's right. Nice boy.”
“Does he live around here?”
“Number Twenty-seven, next to the corner. Oh, but, it's over twenty years ago that his family moved away. Pleasant couple. They—”
“Thank you, ma'am,” said Harald. “Thank you very much.”
They walked on, with Viktor leading the way.
“We learned nothing,” muttered Viktor. “Capers lived here as a kid. So what? There's no hideout for ensorcelled cops and dark mages. Nothing but ruins, and where the Hades is Alexa?”
“Maybe,” said Harald.
“What, maybe?”
“Maybe we didn't learn nothing. Maybe Capers planned to come here, not because he'd been commanded to run to Charcroft Depths specifically, but just to a place of safety. To a place he knew well.”
“Huh. Harald, you're a genius.”
“I know. Do you know where Alexa grew up?”
“Uh … Shadebourne Yards, near the Groans?”
“I'm not sure. That sounds right, but Shadebourne's a large place. Time to get back to HQ, see if Surveillance can find anything with those monitors of theirs.”
“And check in with Donal. Maybe Bowman.”
“That too.”
They reached Dreadwell Place, a gloomy station that was always cold, where they caught a Black Line train to Blamechurch Avenue. There, they walked up to street level. Viktor scanned the half-busy sidewalks, and looked back at the station.
“Still no one following.”
“I agree.”
“We can walk to Dingvale, catch the Dragonway bus to Avenue of the Basilisks.”
“Uh-huh. Might be better if we didn't ride on the same bus.”
“Yeah. Good thinking.”
They'd be approaching HQ from the opposite direction of Monazen Iona, but there was no sense in making things easier for any potential witnesses to Capers's shooting. Harald considered suggesting that Viktor remove his recognizable leather coat, but then every cop who knew Viktor would wonder what was going on.
As they walked the length of Blamechurch Avenue, the dark road leading from the eponymous Pneumetro station, Harald and Viktor automatically scanned the tall, old tenements. They noticed the lighted windows begin to flicker.
“Power brownout,” said Harald. “We've had them in my neighborhood too.”
“Not in mine.”
Then, for a second, everything plunged into darkness. Harald and Viktor stopped. It was the middle of the day, but all the lights were out. Without artificial lighting, Tristopolis was pitch dark beneath the purple sky.
When the lights flicked back on, they were dimmer than before.
“That's a bit unsettling,” said Viktor, just as a baby began to cry in a nearby tenement.
“Looks like the Energy Authority have it under some kind of control.”
“I guess.”
At the end of the block, they stopped.
“What the crap is going on there?”
Across the way, a group of people stood at a bus stop, about to board. But the vehicle they were boarding had armored windows, and an Engels County PD emblem on the side. The cops who were ushering them aboard wore white helmets and carried long staves.
“Rounding up zombies?”
“And taking them outside the city limits, to Engels.”
Ordinary citizens were walking past, looking down at the ground. It was a form of self-protection: ignoring reality, deceiving the self, effectively hallucinating a normality that was not there. Every cop knew the story of Mary Jo Gavin, stabbed to death in Horzahl Station in the middle of rush hour, and not a single witness among the hundreds of commuters that the police had questioned, in the presence of certified truthseers and truthsayers.
“We have to do something.”
“We have to think of Alexa.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
They turned and walked away, just like all the other citizens.
Harald entered HQ first, with Viktor due to follow in twenty minutes. Two men had walked away from Capers lying on the sidewalk, and arriving separately was a final precaution. But they'd both been careful, checking the placement of rooftop surveillance mirrors, seeing no scanbats. It was unlikely they would be suspects, at least until Capers came around. If he came around.
Eduardo, on the desk, was trying to calm down a group of tourists bickering in what sounded liked Low Dalasien.
“Hey, Harald.”
“Eduardo. Sorry, I don't speak Dalasien.”
“Is that what they're jabbering in? Thanks, pal. At least now I know what kind of interpreter to ask for.”
He pointed to the phone on his desk. It was still a black telephone.
“Good. I'll see you lat—”
“Need a word, Harald.”
“All right.”
“The lieutenant says you gotta practice more for the competition. Like there's money riding on us versus the 53rd, you know?”
“I wasn't…” Harald patted the granite block. “All right. I'll practice.”
“Good.” Eduardo winked. “You're a good man.”
“And so are you.”
Both Donal and Eduardo knew two things: that Harald practiced his combat skills constantly, and that he had no intention of participating in any competition. He stepped inside the first available elevator shaft.
“Gun range, please.”