by John Meaney
“Mordanto Hospital,” he said. “Not just for healing, though, are you?”
The gates looked heavy and strong. Beyond, the grounds seemed quiet, as though absorbing sound even as Donal could hear traffic passing behind him.
He took a step toward the gates, and then—
Hades.
—another, except that now he was walking on flagstones, already inside the grounds.
At the 157th Street corner of the Iron Emporium, the opposite end from Hoardway, three pale figures stopped in a black metal archway, staring at the street, wondering if they dared move out into the open. Just as they made their decision and stepped from the archway's shelter, a police cruiser squealed around the corner, the doors swept open on either side, and the same two officers as before came out.
This time, they had guns drawn. Even in a city where beatings and evictions had grown common, this was unexpectedly serious. Only the worst of cops would cross the line like this.
The three zombies looked around for help, but the warehousemen were fading into the buildings, leaving half-unloaded crates. There was no one to watch as the officers stopped and raised their weapons.
“We did nothing to you,” said the woman.
“Fuckin’ icicles.”
Both zombie men—one injured, the other bearing his friend's weight—closed their eyes. The woman stared straight at the bigger cop.
“Someday,” she said, “your bones will feed the reactor piles.”
Behind them, from the alley they had fled along, an engine grumbled. It was like an ice tiger's purr: low, yet promising swiftness and power. The male zombies opened their eyes and turned to look at the shining green headlights.
“Not today.” The big cop's trigger finger tightened. “Say goodbye to your—”
And then the roar sounded.
“Hades!” The smaller cop opened fire, but not at the zombies. “Go for the tires!”
“What—?”
The bigger cop fired one round before the scream of brakes took the Vixen through an arcing turn, gray-blue smoke pouring from her wheel arches as she swung sideways on. Twin liquid crunches sounded simultaneously.
She backed off, gunned her engine, and drove forward. There was a squelch, a thud, then nothing save two wet smears.
After a few moments, the Vixen gently rolled toward the three zombies, and popped open her doors. The trio stared at the empty seats inside.
The woman looked at her injured friend.
“We need the car's help.”
He nodded, then grimaced as the other two helped him into the rear. The man got in beside him, while the woman climbed into the front passenger seat, looked at the crescent-shaped steering wheel beside her, and shook her head.
Then the Vixen's doors closed, she moved into first, and rolled out onto 157th, merging with the traffic, giving the zombie woman just the briefest glimpse of an outflung hand and two glistening red streaks before the crowded street obscured her view.
Foodstores predominated near the Iron Emporium. The shoppers were moving at their usual pace, intent on their business. Few of them were anything other than standard human; apart from that, it might have been any ordinary day from a week, a year, or decades before.
None of the zombies spoke.
The taxi driver was a widower, though not old. As he drove onto the complicated intersection of Heptagon Pacifica, he thought about the cops rousting those zombies at the Iron Emporium, and muttered a short prayer to Saint Merlin for their safety.
He drove past the exit that would take him home. There was another route he'd not followed since his previous birthday, or was it the one before that?
“Been a while, bro.”
His brother and his brother's family lived in a lifeward-guarded cottage far out in the countryside, beyond the Jetshade Range. The driver had always been close to his brother, and welcome in his home.
He made a complete circuit of the intersection without exiting. The more he thought about it, the more he could not think of a reason to go home, not even to pack. As he neared the turnoff for Greyville Zoomway for the second time, he changed lanes, signaled, and took the exit.
Progress would be slower than the Zoomway's name might indicate, but he would be out of Tristopolis proper within three hours, and among the Jetshade foothills by the early hours of morning.
“It'll be good to see you, bro.”
He settled in for a steady drive.
The Vixen drew to a halt before the Mordanto gates. From inside the car, the woman could see through the gates’ bars. There were towers inside the grounds, and a lean, fit-looking man was ascending the steps of the nearest.
“That's the guy who helped us.”
“Interesting,” said the injured zombie in the rear. “You know, I was resurrected here in Mordanto. I was a firefighter, and the department had resurrection policies as standard. Anyway, you can feel odd energies moving in this place, and sometimes the buildings howl.”
“When was that?”
“My resurrection? Nearly a century ago. Coming back here, I think I understand. The towers can feel pain, and that's not a metaphor.”
“Fancy talk for a firefighter.”
“I've had plenty of time to change.”
“Haven't we all?”
They watched the police lieutenant ascending to the tower's doorway.
“Shit.”
“Did you see that?”
The police lieutenant was gone, although none of them had seen the door open. After a moment, the woman laid her hand on the Vixen's steering wheel.
“Are you sure we ought to be here? It's a strange place, and it's not as if the gates look about to open.”
For a moment, there was no reaction from the Vixen. Then bright green light reflected back from the gates as her headlight beams intensified. They began to pulse in rapid, changing flashes. This continued for about a minute, during which the three zombies remained silent.
Then the Vixen's lights went dark.
“Whatever that was, it didn't—”
Bars of black antilight strobed from the gates, then stopped. The Vixen gave a rapid series of pulses in reply. There were more black flashes from the iron gates, then the Vixen engaged first gear and leaped forward, very fast, and in a second they were on the driveway inside the Mordanto grounds.
“The gates opened,” said the injured zombie from the rear. “Really quickly.”
“No,” said the male zombie beside him. “I watched, and they remained closed.”
In the front passenger seat, the woman turned.
“I agree with both of you.”
The Vixen gave a soft toot of its horn, and came to a halt.
The hallway was long, lined with steel, and decorated with diamond panes. At the far end was a doorway, and as before, Donal walked through it, to find himself in a corridor overlooking the black lawns … two stories above ground level. Viktor was standing there, his big arms folded.
“This is a strange place to get help,” he said. “And I'm sorry.”
“Where's Harald?”
“Up in the Eyries, with the professor who's helping us.” Viktor's already gravelly voice deepened. “Examining scanbat memories.”
“I thought that happens in the 99th Precinct, next to the Academy.” There was a tall nine-sided building solely for that purpose, visible from the trainees’ exercise field. “In Gestaltengram Tower.”
“That's the official way, with bureaucracy and court orders, like that.”
Viktor began walking along the corridor. Donal matched his pace.
“Sounds like Harald's excelled himself.”
“Uh … the professor's not exactly part of his network.”
“So who is he? Oh, crap. Aren't there any normal doors in this place?”
“Not—”
They were standing on the far side of the stationary door.
“—hardly.”
“Hades.”
Donal looked around, th
en up. He and Viktor were standing on a narrow horizontal ring that ran around the inside of a great hollow tower. The ring consisted of alternating translucent-blue and transparent treads. Similar rings lined the tower's interior all the way up, every fifteen feet or so, and likewise down into subterranean levels that were hidden in what might have been a dark-blue mist.
High up, gantries and platforms and a glistening steel sphere spanned the width of the tower. People were moving and talking above them.
“That's where we're headed,” said Viktor.
“So how do we get up there?”
“You're going to like this. Just keep on walking.”
“Is this some new meaning of like,” said Donal, “that I haven't come across before?”
“Could be.”
The two men walked along the ring-shaped floor. After a while, it seemed to Donal that there were two people walking in parallel on the ring above.
“Keep walking,” Viktor told him, “or it doesn't work.”
“What doesn't—”
Not again.
“—work?”
They were still walking, and for maybe half a second Donal thought there were two men on the level beneath, but then it was just him and Viktor continuing their perambulation. Except that they were now one level higher.
As they continued to walk, they passed ordinary windows set into the walls. After they had ascended four levels in the same fashion as before, Donal glanced out of a window overlooking the main driveway. A Vixen was parked there.
There's more than one Vixen in Tristopolis.
Either Laura's sister had followed him, or someone at Mordanto owned a Vixen, and Donal had no way of working out which was the more likely. In this place everything seemed—
Shit. Another level.
—twisted in a way that made straight thinking impossible.
But as he continued to make circuits of the tower, with Viktor beside him, each time he passed a corresponding window on the next level up, he got only a more elevated view of the same unmoving car. Finally, he scarcely glanced out at the Vixen, as the upper levels of the Eyrie were drawing closer.
On the last circuit, they walked onto a solid silver platform. Viktor stopped. Donal took one extra pace.
“What's going on?” he said.
A white-haired woman stood there, lab coat worn over a plush turquoise gown. She was manipulating a polished console, though she paused for a moment to stare at Donal. Her eyes were startling.
She's …
Donal found himself unable to complete the thought.
Harald and a youngish-looking man, his head shaven, were watching as a third man, older and with a goatee, clutched the arms of the steel chair he was sitting in. Vertical rods connected the chair to some contraption overhead, on which lay something that Donal had seen many times before, but always at a distance.
The scanbat's body was of steel and fur, its mandibles polished, each of its convex black eyes bigger than a man's head. The delta wings stretched out seven feet to either side. This close, it looked more like a giant moth than a bat.
Donal swallowed as he realized that the apparatus was lowering the scanbat, its head on a line with the goateed man's skull.
He's a mage.
This was Mordanto after all.
And the young one with Harald. Another mage.
Then there was the old woman with the commanding eyes, her hands easily manipulating the controls, directing the scanbat's descent.
“We supply your department's scanbats.” She kept her attention on her console. “And attune the observer-mages who work in Gestaltengram Tower.”
“So you know what you're doing,” said Donal.
The lines of her face appeared to sink deeper, but it seemed that she had to concentrate. Donal rubbed his face and felt ashamed, not knowing why.
The scanbat continued to descend, lowered on shining rods. On the steel chair below, the goateed mage's eyes were fluttering, and his breathing was shallow.
What happened next was impossible.
It's illusion.
The rods lowered the scanbat.
Nothing physical.
And lowered it, until the scanbat's head reached the top of the mage's skull, and continued to descend for several seconds more, until the mage's features and the scanbat's head occupied the same small volume of space.
I am not seeing this.
It was a blur. It was a stereoscopic trick. The man's features were overlaid on the steel-and-black-glass head of the scanbat; or the scanbat's configuration overlaid the man.
Donal saw both things at the same time.
Impossible.
And then the mage's mouth opened.
“I've found her.”
The words echoed around the tower.
“Near Shatterway Sound, a three-sided ruin, off Conlanx Road.”
Then the scanbat was rising once more, hauled upward by the apparatus that held it, and the mage was wiping sweat from his face. He blinked several times, then focused on Harald.
“You need to hurry,” he said.
His younger colleague, the shaven-headed mage, touched Harald's sleeve.
“I'll drive you,” he said.
But Harald was still looking at the mage who had merged with the scanbat.
“Was there a motorcycle in sight?”
“Maybe. Inside the ruin, the ground is dark, as if the floor has fallen in. Within the darkness”—the mage's eyelids fluttered, then opened wide—“there is definitely something shining green.”
“The Phantasm.”
The younger mage turned to the white-haired woman, but her attention was on Donal.
“Professor Steele?” called the mage. “I'll need authorization to take a golem to—”
He stopped and blanched as the woman's gaze focused on him.
Professor Steele?
Donal felt his muscles weakening, and he backed up against the wall.
Yes.
And when he opened his mouth, the words that came out were higher-pitched than normal.
“M-Mother? It's … you.”
“Oh, my Death,” said Professor Steele. “Laura.”
“No.”
Donal shook his head.
It's Mother.
But he remembered the orphanage, the stern face of Sister Mary-Anne Styx, who'd cared for him, and the schoolyard taunting because he had no family, the leather strap whipping into him because he had fought back. And the worn newspaper cutting that finally crumbled into dust when he was in the army, disintegrating the two brief paragraphs that described the auto accident and the cut-short lives of Mr. and Mrs. Riordan.
I have no mother.
Yet clearly he did, because when he looked at the old woman's eyes, at Professor Helena Steele's eyes—at Mother's eyes—all he could feel was love that gushed up warmly through his body. His zombie body. And the memories of a richly decorated home, and the smiles of Helena and Vladil Steele, when their marriage was still young and everything was fine.
I'm not…
Donal's knees gave way, and he sank onto the metal floor.
Not her.
I miss you, Laura.
He was curling into a fetal position, his muscles contracting without volition.
I love you, Donal.
This was impossible.
You're dead.
And you're not?
He dropped into blackness.
Coming to, Donal found himself dangling over Viktor's shoulder. Directly below him were gray flagstones. They were outdoors.
“I can … stand.”
“Not by yourself.” Viktor bent forward, so that Donal's feet reached the ground. “Keep steady.”
The massive strength of Viktor's arm held Donal upright.
Concentrate.
Professor Helena Steele, Harald, and the shaven-headed mage were standing nearby. Beyond them was a silver truck, its side door open to reveal a seated purple golem. But right beside Donal—an
d Viktor, supporting him—was a familiar Vixen, her headlights glowing strongly green as Donal gave a partial smile.
“Hey, sis,” he said.
The Vixen tooted.
“You should let her take you,” said Professor Steele. “And remember you are Donal Riordan.”
“If he stayed,” began the younger mage, “we could treat him in the—”
“No,” said Harald.
“Sergeant Hammersen is right.” Professor Steele smiled, but her voice was sad. “It would be better for the lieutenant to get away from here. With my regrets.”
Then the Vixen's doors opened, and a female zombie exited from the front, a man from the rear. A third zombie remained inside.
“Are you his friends?” asked Professor Steele.
“We hardly know him, but yes.”
“His heart belonged to another.”
The male zombie looked puzzled, but the woman said: “Oh, shit.”
“Precisely.”
“We'll take care of him.”
Donal observed all this silently. Staying awake was all he could manage.
When Viktor spoke, Donal felt the words as a rumbling vibration.
“Tristopolis isn't safe. For any of you.”
Professor Steele took a step toward the Vixen, then stopped when the engine growled.
“You always had a problem with me, but that's all right. You are your father's daughter.”
The Vixen's headlights narrowed into horizontal slits. Perhaps the grille stretched wider.
“You know where to take them.” Professor Steele turned to the woman zombie. “I'd appreciate a phone call when you're safe. And my young friend Kelvin”—she indicated the shaven-headed mage—“can offer technical assistance over the phone, if you need it.”
“All right.” The woman helped Viktor walk Donal to the driver's door. “You're Donal, right? In you get.”
Donal felt the hands maneuvering him into place behind the crescent-shaped steering wheel. He wanted to help, but his muscles felt soft, and his eyelids were pulling downward, pulling his whole head forward—
Stay awake.
He raised his chin.
“Drive fast,” said Professor Steele. “And take care.”
Then the woman zombie was in the front passenger seat beside Donal, the man climbed in the back, and the doors closed by themselves. Harald, Viktor, Professor Steele, and the young mage, Kelvin, all stepped back.