Daughter of Danger: The Dark Avenger's Sidekick Book One (Moth & Cobweb 4)

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Daughter of Danger: The Dark Avenger's Sidekick Book One (Moth & Cobweb 4) Page 15

by John C. Wright


  The unicorn said, “And who shall keep the law while the king sleeps?”

  The lion said, “Let the thief catch the thief, and let the vigilante avenge the blood, that when the king wakes, he shall spare you.”

  Ami in terror threw herself on her face, cowering. She twisted the ring on her finger from iron to pewter to silver, and the thunders of the voices fell silent. She looked up. The apparitions were gone.

  A messenger on a bicycle rode by, staring at her lying face down on the pavement, but he said nothing.

  4. Werewolves and Warehouses

  Her first idea had been a dead end. But she was not out of options yet.

  It was an eight-block walk from the police precinct to the hospital—about a third of a mile. She looked with envy at the buses and taxicabs crawling slowly by and wished she had money.

  As she walked, she reviewed the conclusions formed in her mind ever since her intimate heart-to-heart talk with herself in the mirror.

  The warehouse that had been burned down had been a false lead meant to trap her. The real headquarters was elsewhere, a place the truck bearing the necrovore had stopped.

  There, the wolves had been removed from the belly of the beast and inspected, and her bugs had been found by the Cossack during the hour while she had been following along on foot. The corpses had been re-swallowed and the necrovore reloaded on its truck to be carried to New Jersey, with a ghost posted at the tunnel to see if she followed.

  She decided that, at least for now, there was no point in looking up other offices of Catoblepas Discreet Shipping. While it was possible that the arson was meant to destroy records or equipment they wanted no man to see, it would cost them less merely to burn some stranger’s place after breaking in to make it look as if their headquarters were gone. She decided that if her other leads ran dry, she could return to this one in case her guesswork was wrong.

  Why select a warehouse? Obviously, they thought a warehouse would lull her suspicions. This meant they thought she should be looking for a warehouse, not some other kind of building.

  So where was the real one?

  Since the wild goose chase had led her out of the city, chances were the real warehouse was between the hospital and the river along the route the truck had taken. It was no doubt where Whelan and Phelan would be brought since the necrovore was still busy being chased down the Hudson River.

  When she arrived, Ami saw that the alley between the dance studio and the hospital was empty of wolf corpses. Whelan and Phelan were gone. It seemed the anarchists were getting quicker on the uptake or more thorough.

  Ami smiled, glad she had been thorough, too.

  5. The Third Trace

  She took out her utility belt, opened the belt buckle, and studied the radio controls hidden there. There were three tracer reception channels turned to zero volume. The belt tabs holding the tracers were numbered, as were the channels. Two channels belonged to the bugs hidden inside Whelan and Phelan.

  The third was labeled zero-one. She had no memory of dropping that tracer. It must have been from before. Something from her previous life.

  As she hoped, the radio gear was meant also to be used with the mask off. She found skintone-tinted earphone buds that fit neatly in either ear to relay the signals the mask received even when the mask was hidden in the cape pocket.

  She followed the stronger first: the signal for Whelan and Phelan was coming from across the street and two blocks south. She saw the sign of the Cobbler’s Club on its awning. It was, by now, almost a familiar place.

  She circled the block to confirm that the signal was coming from that building. A sign in front declared it closed. No lights gleamed. The doors of the loading dock in back were shut and locked. Through an upper window, she saw what seemed to be a large dog staring out at her.

  From the window of a taller building across the street, she used the binoculars from her utility belt to study the roof of the Cobbler building. There were two men on the roof, either taking a smoking break or standing watch. There was activity at midmorning: a large number of dogs, more than a dozen, were taken out by several young women for a walk in Central Park. At noon, a score of young, smiling beauties marched out of the main doors and down the street, attracting stares and whistles. Apparently, some of the showgirls or waitresses lived in a dormitory in the building. This miniature pageant traveled two blocks over to a spa and fitness club called Equinox. Two hours later, they marched back. At three o’clock, there was more activity: rear doors were unlocked, and a mixture of hard-faced men and pretty young women began arriving. Presumably, they were the kitchen crew, waitresses, bouncers, barkeep, and so on. At four o’clock the front doors were opened, lanterns raised, window drapes drawn back, signs lit, and so on, and the establishment was open for business.

  Ami thought it might be too bold to join the line forming at the door to get in and go to the club, especially as she had no money. The signal from the two tracers had not moved or dropped during the hours of her patient vigil. And the mystery of the other lead was nagging her: where, or on whom, had she placed a tracer, and why? Or—it suddenly occurred to her—if she had not planted the tracer, where had the prior owner of this supersuit done so?

  Chapter Eleven: Desecrate Ground

  1. The Church of the Transfiguration

  It was after midnight when she abandoning her watch over the Cobbler’s Club. Ami walked down Madison Avenue, following the signal from her former life. She was tired, and hungry, and had no fare for bus or subway. The ache in her stomach reminded her that the last time she had eaten was breakfast the previous day.

  On she walked. The night sky was invisible, washed out by signs and skyscrapers, and endless vertical rows and ranks of light. The air seemed warm and close despite the early season and the late hour, and the tall buildings on either hand were like the walls of a box. The hard-faced crowds on the street seemed surlier than before, and the bleating and honking street traffic ruder.

  She found an open-air shopping courtyard, a semicircle of stalls with vendors crying out the virtues of their wares, surrounded by a hedge and tucked between two buildings. Here, beneath a tree, was a roofless booth for taking photos. No cameras and no clerks seemed to be paying any particular attention to it: Ami ducked in, changed into her skintight black suit, and donned her utility belt. The weight of her weapons on her hips was comforting.

  She shot her wirepoon up into the tree, twisted her ring to pewter, and lifted herself out of the scene like a Greek actor portraying a departing god. From the tree, she swung to the roof of the nearest low building, and from there to a taller building.

  She heard the voice of one little boy cry out in delight and awe as she threw herself lightly through the air, but if anyone else saw her, no cries followed.

  Just the physical pleasure of soaring through the cool night air, far above the streetlamps, was exhilarating.

  From roof to roof she dove and swung and flew, weightless as a dream.

  North of Madison Square Park, she came upon an area where there were no lights. The concrete ended. Neighboring buildings loomed over a square of cedar trees and rosebushes. Midmost were several buildings, deserted and dark, connected by unlit gray walkways. The only light came from the sign on the locked gate of the spearpoint fence. Ami held up her binoculars to the lenses of her fox mask.

  NOTICE: This building is unfit for human habitation; the use or occupancy of this building for human habitation is prohibited and unlawful. It was signed by the Building Inspector.

  There was a smaller sign beneath the first.

  Know all men by these presences that the buildings, grounds, and fixtures of this facility are deconsecrated, desanctified, desacralized, and fit for profane use alone. No further remains will be received for interment. No dead may come. It was signed by the Ordinary and the Bishop.

  She put the binoculars away, frowning under her mask. What did it mean when ground was no longer sacred?

  No dead may come.
That ominous phrase, oddly enough, was cheering to her. Perhaps the ghosts would stay away.

  The signal was coming from the fourth story of a Gothic edifice of soaring arches and frowning gargoyles. Ami swung to the steeple. She landed in the shadow of a peaked roof. Dark spaces where bells once hung gaped like toothless mouths.

  She stiffened and looked upward, startled. A trio of hooded saints with drawn swords stared down at her with blind eyes. Ami relaxed, seeing that these were statues. She slid down her line to a ledge before an open window. The right-hand sash of the window was a latticework screen carved with images of ravens battling wolves. The left-hand sash hung down crookedly from a wide iron hinge cast in the shape of a grape leaf.

  She twisted the ring back to white, to make herself, she hoped, invisible to ghosts. Weight returned.

  She checked the window frame for tripwires and electric eyes and saw nothing suspicious. In she slid.

  2. The Eight-Walled Chamber

  She landed on a carpet. Dust rose into the air. With a quiet hiss, the mask sealed hermetically against the neckpiece, and bottled air from some hidden oxygen supply tickled her nose. Apparently, the supersuit was paranoid about airborne particles.

  The chamber was octagonal, paneled in dark wood, taller than it was wide. Above was an eight-sided wooden dome, heavy with shadows. The wall behind her had arched windows at shoulder level covered with wooden shutters. Rays of light from the skyscrapers and streetlamps shined through the gaps in the carven window screens like a host of spears, held in parallel ranks. The rays were visible, if faint, in the dust of the air.

  Opposite was an arched door with a glass doorknob. The facets of the glass glimmered in the dim light like a miniature moon. Against two walls were cabinet doors. Against the third was an old-fashioned roll top desk, but no chair. In the middle of the room was a small table next to a standing lamp. A phone sat on the table. It was an old-fashioned rotary phone.

  She stepped over to door and opened it. Behind was a brick wall.

  The green shadows she saw through the light-amplification goggles were confusing. The thin and parallel strands of dusty light from the carved window screens made an incomprehensible pattern of bright and dark rectangles across the obtuse angles of the walls and the door. She was not sure what she was seeing.

  She doffed the mask, stepped over to the pole lamp, and, with a click, turned on the light. She blinked at the open door. The brick wall was still there. She ran her hands over it and knocked on the bricks. They were firm and solid.

  She opened the first cabinet door. Behind was a panel of solid wood. The second cabinet door also held nothing but a blank wood wall. There were no cabinets behind the cabinet doors.

  The roll top desk was next. The wooden slats rolled back. The desk was empty. The pigeonholes, nooks and drawers were bare.

  Ami slowly turned in a circle, looking at the blocked door, the missing cabinets, the empty desk. Her eyes narrowed. There was no way to walk in or out of the chamber, and there was nothing in the chamber. It was like the set of a theater stage. What did it mean?

  She knelt. She ran her fingers along the bottom of the table. Eventually, she touched something the size and shape of a dime. She inspected it without touching it. It was the missing tracer from her utility belt. That led to a next question: why had she put this here? It was not an eavesdropping device. A tracer was used to track a moving target.

  Had she wanted herself to return here? If so, how had she known, before it happened, that she would lose her memory?

  Not knowing why she had put it here in the first place, she left the tracer where it was.

  A metallic noise, loud in the quiet chamber, erupted an inch above her head. It was as startling as a firecracker.

  She somersaulted toward a safe corner of the eight-sided room, her back to no window, drawing her sword. The white blade snapped open to its full size as a kodachi. She crouched lightly, one knee on the floor, her fist before her and the blade parallel to her forearm. Her other hand, by instinct, without thought, had drawn three throwing stars and held them between her fingers, arm cocked back, ready to throw.

  It was the phone. The noise was the phone ringing.

  Her eyes narrowed. The phone ring did not cease. There was no answering machine on an older phone.

  She stood, sheathed the blade and throwing stars, and stepped toward the table.

  Her eye fell on the lamp, which she, of course, had lit. Her eyes moved to the windows, which, of course, were not opaque.

  She stepped and peered out from between the carved wooden image of an angry crow pecking at the eyes of a lunging wolf. From which window, balcony, or roof of the two or three buildings in her line of sight, a telescope was trained on this window was impossible to say. The sensation of being inspected without the eyes of her observer being visible was the same as being watched by a ghost.

  She breathed in through her mouth and out through her nose. Man did not control fate; fate controlled man. Desire was an iron chain; detachment was freedom. Only if her heart were as motionless as the dead center of a turning wheel could she act without hesitation and abide the outcome without regret. Only by desiring neither life nor death could she act without fear.

  Hence it was without the slightest tremor in her hand, without the slightest quaver in her voice, that she picked up the phone and spoke, “Here am I.”

  “Meet me at the top of the Empire State Building.”

  Click.

  It had been an older voice, a man’s voice. Ami stood with the phone in hand, eyes wide, motionless with shock. After a moment, the dial tone came on the line.

  She had heard his voice before. Something within her knew it.

  Your bones are more easily broken. Your heart more easily frightened.

  It was the voice of the master who had taught her how to fight.

  3. Graveyard Shift

  The Empire State Building was within eyesight and within walking distance. Ami swung from roof to roof until she landed on the Langham Place Building. There was no one on the rooftop at night. She changed into her civilian clothing, and picked the lock on the elevator, which she rode to the street level. From there, she walked two blocks.

  The idea of climbing up the outside of the Empire State Building was one she dismissed. Visible, she would be too easily seen by men, and invisible, by ghosts, peering out from any window of the surrounding skyscrapers or up from the surrounding streets.

  Even at midnight, there was a line on the sidewalk to get into the lobby to the Empire State Building. She overheard someone in line mention that there were four more lines inside to queue up in: the lobby elevator line, the ticket line, the express elevator line, and the observation deck line.

  The door to the lobby was equipped with a metal detector. She remembered the metal detector at the precinct house had sensed her many metal weapons even when all were folded into the mist and hidden in her cape. Ami decided this was not the way for her.

  She saw a plaque listing the visitor’s hours. The observation deck was open until two in the morning. She walked all the way around the block the Empire State occupied, taking special note of back entrances for deliveries and the like. The underground ramp leading to the delivery entrance was behind a gate observed by cameras.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, a truck came down the alley. When the truck passed her and she was between it and the wall of the Empire State Building, she was in a spot no eyes could see. She twisted the ring sharply to black and hopped on the tailgate of the truck as it slowed down to enter the ramp.

  She found herself in an immense warehouse, stacked with crates and containers, with its own parking garage staffed by a fleet of trucks. The midnight shift apparently had a full crew manning it: there were dozens of workingmen down here.

  There was one moment of tension when she dismounted from the truck. The driver saw her in his rearview mirror and called out. But when he threw open his door and leaned out, his eyes could not see h
er crouching an arm’s length away.

  There was also a large plate glass window separating the invoice desks from the loading dock and no way to cross without passing in front of it. She walked on by. One man, who was carrying an Art Deco brass sink on either shoulder, saw her in the reflection and turned, saying, “Hold on, sweetcakes, you ain’t allowed to be…” But his naked eyes deceived him as she moved quietly past before his puzzled face.

  No more cameras or workingmen saw her. No alarm was raised.

  She found a supervisor’s office, which conveniently had a private stairway leading up to the freight elevators. In the stairwell, she doffed her civilian clothes and donned her supersuit. As the snug, almost-living fabric embraced her, and the weight of the weapons was on her hips, confidence filled her.

  The freight elevator doors were locked with key cards, which she had no way to pick or force. Therefore, she merely waited, silent as a fox, unseen in a corner of the corridor until two clerks in overalls, pushing a hand truck hauling a pallet of mail bags, opened the freight elevator for themselves, and, unknowingly, for her.

  The elevator grumbled and shivered and rose. As they passed the sixty-sixth floor, one of the clerks turned toward the front of the elevator, where she was standing and, looking right at her, said to her, “’Tis an ill hour. The graveyard shift is unchancy. This tower is unchancy.”

  He was redhaired and freckled. His name tag read O’KEEFE.

  Ami held her breath, wondering if he could really see her or if he were merely standing so as to face her way.

  The other clerk, who was dark haired and dark skinned, muttered a sullen answer, “You’re cracked.” His name tag read LEROY.

  “Six brothers alive elder than me at birth had I. My dad, six brothers living his elder had he. You know what that means?”

  Leroy said sourly, “It means you are cracked.”

 

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