The Last Smile in Sunder City

by Luke Arnold

  I’ve disappointed a lot of people in my time. You’d think I’d be used to it. But as I sat in Baxter’s office, watching them angrily sign the papers that would keep the mansion safe from harm, for now, I could feel Graham and Hendricks and Amari sitting there too.

  Baxter put down their pen and nodded. I was waiting for a lecture, or for them to go back on the agreement. But all Baxter said was, “It was a Dragon.”

  I was lost.

  “What was?”

  “The Chimera. That creature that wiped out Eran County and sent you off to Weatherly. It wasn’t some special, one-of-a-kind creature or the last of its bloodline. It was an experiment. Some sick-minded Mage found an active Dragon pit and threw in a whole mess of animals at the same time. The Chimera was what came out. It wasn’t some special animal that needed protection from extinction. It was a monster. And Hendricks was wrong to let it run loose.”

  What?

  “Did he know?” I asked.

  “Only after your village was gone. He wanted to tell you but he was worried about how you’d react. I imagine it was one of the reasons he felt so protective of you.”

  Damn, my head hurt. I didn’t know how to fit that into my memories. I couldn’t even tell if it made me feel angry or even more guilty than before.

  “Why tell me now?”

  Baxter pushed a piece of paper across the desk. It was the deed to the mansion. Still in the developer’s name, but I’d asked for my own copy.

  “Because we all screw up, even when we want to be good. And some things aren’t supposed to be saved.”

  28

  You ever feel so disgusted with yourself that you can smell your own stink? I reeked of stupidity and selfishness and lessons not learned. Like an adulterer leaving a cheap motel, I wondered how I’d managed to make the same mistake all over again. I’d got exactly what I wanted but I knew in a moment it was all wrong.

  A few days earlier, when I’d kicked that developer out of my office, it had made me feel good. It might not have been big or brave or life-changing, but it was somewhere on the right track. This? What I’d just done? It was down in the weeds with the dead bodies and the dog shit.

  The Roost was still closed. In some way, I was happy not to see Eileen. Not to have to explain what I’d been doing all day. But I wanted a drink. So I went to The Ditch.

  I’d had a busy day. None of it had been good but the worst part had been knocking on the door to a Dwarven home and giving them the beautiful gift of blackmail. If there was one thing in particular I wanted to push out of my head with alcohol, it was that.

  But there they were.

  Every Dwarf that had just been kicked from their home was drowning their misery in my favorite watering hole. One head turned, then the others followed, until every bulging eye was fixed on my tired face. Sure, we’d already talked it out and cut our deal but that didn’t mean they felt happy about it. And it didn’t mean that after a few drinks, they wouldn’t want to stomp my head into a paste with their little boots.

  I gave a weak, apologetic wave and turned around before they started throwing things.

  Where had I gone wrong? I’d been a better man a few days earlier. Not good, just better than what I’d become. And what did it? Just the idea that something sweet could come back into my life? I was fine with having nothing. Nothing to hold onto and so no reason to do anyone else any wrong. But give me a little hope and I’ll show you who I really am.

  A trash can was tipped over on the sidewalk, I booted it into an alley as I went past.

  Maybe nobody gets better. Maybe bad people just get worse. It’s not the bad things that make people bad, though. From what I’ve seen, we all work together in the face of adversity. Join up like brothers and work to overcome whatever big old evil wants to hold us down. The thing that kills us is the hope. Give a good man something to protect and you’ll turn him into a killer.

  I took a Clayfield from my pocket and chewed it as I stomped up the street. There was something important dangling in front of my mind but I couldn’t bring it into focus.

  Baxter had said we were the same. Rye and I. Troubled souls who seemed to find some relief after the Coda.

  But all it took was a little story to bring me back again. What about Rye? He’d heard a story too, hadn’t he? Sydney Grimes sent him a letter, telling him about some new monster that might have found the magic again. If Rye didn’t join the fight, then where was he? What had that little story done to him?

  Two Vampires were dead but they must have received their information from the League. I didn’t know of any Vampires in town, other that the husk in the retirement village who wouldn’t be any help. There was someone else, though. A manicured messenger in fancy dress who really wanted to be part of their gang.

  How had I lured him out last time? Just by going around town making a nuisance of myself. Finally, something right in my wheelhouse. I may be bad at almost everything but, if required, I can be a perfectly pitched pain in the ass.

  Last time I went to Jimmy’s bar, all I got was a dirty glass of water and an up-close-and-personal introduction to a Cyclops’s right hook. I wasn’t expecting to do much better when I marched up the stairs through the black door again.

  It was much the same as last time. Little bowls of nuts on round tables, nice lighting, a Gnome in a white suit on one of the stools and the ugly, one-eyed bastard behind the bar.

  There were two Elves sitting in a booth and a Werecat in too much make-up trying to get the phone to work but too drunk to realize that the lines were down.

  Nice. It was enough of an audience for what I needed to do.

  All eyes were on me. I took a handful of nuts from one of the bowls and chewed them loudly, with my mouth open, smiling. I must have looked insane. I felt insane.

  The Gnome was already laughing.

  “What happened to the Vamp?” I asked the barman. He appeared to be both confused and exhausted.

  “Get out.”

  I swiped my hand across the table, whacking the bowl of nuts on to the floor. It was fun, playing tough. I almost forgot I was about to get my face kicked in.

  “Edmund. Albert. Rye.” I stepped closer, crushing snacks beneath my boots. “He used to come here. Now he’s missing, and two other Vampires have been killed down by the piazza. It has something to do with The League of Vampires and,” I pointed at the Cyclops but I didn’t get too close, “I think you know what’s going on.”

  I didn’t think he knew what was going on. I didn’t think he knew anything. The expression on his face all but confirmed it.

  “Leave this place, crazy man, and don’t come back.”

  I picked up an ashtray and threw it at him. I missed but it smashed two expensive bottles behind his head.

  The Gnome cackled in delight. The Cyclops went red. I dared to take another step forward.

  Then, he pulled a crossbow out from under the bar.

  Shit.

  You get used to taking punches. It never feels good but it can start to feel like a natural part of life after a while. Getting shot? Well, that’s always a bitch.

  Nobody moved. My two eyes stared into his single orb. I was sweating.

  “Look,” I said, “Buster. I’m just trying to—”

  I turned and ran. I was almost around the door when I heard the twang of the bowstring and, sure enough, felt a pain in my shoulder a split-second later.

  I lost my footing on the stairs and fell forward. I didn’t want to turn, in case it shoved the bolt farther into my back, so I took the force of the tumble on my hands, knees and noggin.

  Once I slammed into the sidewalk, I scrambled to my feet and kept moving in case the barman came out to fire off another shot. I felt like two hundred pounds of foolishness but I’d done what I’d wanted to: stir up some shit to see what comes sniffing.

  29

  Lucky for me, the bolt wasn’t barbed and the thick hide of my jacket had slowed it down. I was able to get it out by jamming the shaf
t in my front door and wrenching my body away from it. It hurt worse than anything that had happened in the last week but I couldn’t waste my time at the overcrowded medical center.

  The only problem with my plan was that it involved sitting silent in my office for an unknown amount of time. It wasn’t a good day for sitting still without distractions. My head was full of fire ants. They were digging through my memories and kicking up all the things I’d done wrong.

  Two days working on the deal for the mansion. Even more time chasing my tail, thinking that this whole mess must have been caused by some Human doing what we did best.

  I should have put this together sooner: Rye being connected to what happened at the teahouse, and The League of Vampires working hard to keep something under wraps.

  Finally, I was distracted by a scraping sound outside.

  He was quiet, but the night was still. I heard something slide against the outside wall that wasn’t a pigeon or a bat. Good. I was worried that he might just try the stairwell when I’d placed all my bets on the Angel door.

  I was sitting under the windowsill with my knife in my hands. There was a wire beside me: running from the broken radiator, along the floor and out into the waiting room.

  The light in the window flickered as the Flyboy peered in through the glass. I’d stuffed clothes under my covers on the bed to make it look like I was asleep. A stupid, schoolboy trick, but it’s a cliché for a reason. A minute later, I heard the almost-silent sounds of metal scraping against metal, not far from my head. Lockpicks, working through the brass like it was nothing. The lock clicked open and the kid took his time turning the knob.

  The door swung between us as he stepped inside.

  The League of Vampires aren’t the only organization who know how to set a trap. Both the Opus and the Human Army had managed to drill a few useful skills into my head.

  While Flyboy closed the door, and his head was still turned, I cut the cord that ran across the floor, through the waiting room, into the hall and around the filing cabinet that was balanced on the edge of the stairwell.

  The filing cabinet dropped. I couldn’t see it, but I saw the effect. It was attached to another rope that ran along the ceiling, between the exposed pipes and through a gap in one of the steel supporting beams. I’d unraveled the last few feet and tied each piece to a corner of the carpet that my intruder was standing on.

  It wasn’t a perfect application of the techniques I’d been taught, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t work. The carpet jumped off the ground like it had stepped on a spider, wrapped around the kid, jammed him up against the support beams, and tried to force him through a crack that even his skinny little ass wouldn’t be able to fit through.

  He squealed and thrashed around inside his carpet cocoon.

  “Stop moving, kid, or I’m going to make it a lot worse for you.” The shaking stopped but his hands were shuffling around inside. I picked up the broomstick I’d set nearby. “I can see you wriggling, Flyboy.”

  WHACK!

  He stifled his scream but I could tell I’d hit something bony. He froze.

  “Good. Now, I’ve got some questions for you. If I don’t like what I hear, I have some other tools standing by that will do more than leave a bruise.”

  I tapped my knife against the metal back of my desk chair. I had his attention now.

  “What happened to the Vampires in the teahouse?”

  He stayed still and silent. I took a guess where his backside was and poked the tip of my knife into it. He yelped. Any other day, I would have smiled.

  “The Marrowkin.”

  “The what?”

  Another pause. I punched him hard with my fist. He groaned, but it sounded more sad than sore. He really, really didn’t want to talk but he’d also never been tortured. He was terrified. Good.

  “I’m going to get it out of you eventually so you might as well tell me before I turn you inside out.”

  He groaned again. This time, it was with resignation. I scraped my knife along the desk to hurry him along.

  “Vampires are dying. Slowly and surely… Even if they drink the blood, the effects aren’t the same. So, they resigned themselves to their fate. Except for one. A renegade. He left The Chamber a year ago and when he returned, he was stronger. He’d changed.”

  “Changed, how? He found a way to get the magic out of the blood again?”

  “No. Not the blood.”

  Another pause. I whacked him again. I couldn’t believe I was actually getting tired of it.

  “Flyboy, speed things up or I’m gonna get stabby.”

  “He discovered a secret. The renegade had been ripping open the bodies of his victims, breaking the bones, and drinking from the inside.”

  My stomach turned. I unconsciously fetched a Clayfield from the pack.

  “And this makes them live longer?”

  “Not only that. They’re larger. Stronger. The marrow feeds their bones and muscles in a way that is… quite astonishing.”

  Just like Portemus said. Elongated. But not by magic. By something else.

  “Word has got out,” Flyboy continued. “Vampires around the world – not all but a few – are leaving the League and joining the Marrowkin. Those left loyal to the cause, like Samuel, Sydney and myself, are hunting the ones that have crossed over.”

  Back at the teahouse, that’s what they’d trapped. An ex-Vampire who had gone rogue by eating marrow. I didn’t want to imagine it. Samuel and Sydney had asked for Rye’s help in capturing the creature. Rye had got the letter but I still didn’t know if he’d made it to the meeting.

  “Professor Rye,” I said. “He was contacted by the others. They wanted his assistance in capturing this… Marrowkin. Do you know what happened to him?”

  He didn’t respond right away. I looked up just in time to see the tip of a knife poke out from the top of the carpet and slice through the rope that was holding him up.

  Two crashes, one after the other. The kid hit the ground and then the filing cabinet hit the ground floor. Flyboy had been moving around in the sack so carefully I hadn’t noticed. Plus, the horrific news he’d delivered had done a good job of distracting me.

  I reached for the broomstick but now that the kid was out of containment he was too fast for me to handle. He kicked my legs out from under me, punched me in the ribs, put one knife between my legs and another on my throat.

  “I have been ordered to clean up this mess, Mr Phillips. I might as well start with you.”

  30

  I was strapped to my chair. First, he used the cord. That probably would have done a good enough job (the kid knew his knots) but then he went down to the broken filing cabinet and came back with the rest of the rope. Every inch of line I’d used in my trap was now wrapped around my body.

  The kid hadn’t gagged me but I didn’t have much to say. I was still too thrown by the story he’d told me, wondering what it meant for Rye or for January or for the world as we know it.

  Flyboy sat down on the desk and looked at me. His two knives were out. Without them, I probably would have kept struggling till he knocked me unconscious but the shine on the blades settled me down.

  “I’ve been on the same trail as you have,” he said. “With more tact, of course. More care. But the same dead ends, it seems. I only saw the Professor once. Weeks ago, along with Samuel Dante and Sydney Grimes. I was the one that told them about the evolution.

  “That’s what I’ve been doing for months: traveling the continent, informing League members outside The Chamber on what’s been happening. It’s protocol not to put anything about the Marrowkin in writing. You can imagine why. The oldest members of the Blood Race still remember what it was like when they were treated as a curse. Hunted. If this news got out, Vampires would go straight back to being the pariahs of society. They couldn’t survive that kind of treatment. Not any more.”

  “So, you really are just the messenger.”

  He shrugged. “At first. Then, one of the
Marrowkin came to Sunder, trying to recruit others to the cause. Sydney and Samuel played along, like they were going to defect from the League and join up with the other side. They set a trap and they sacrificed their lives killing the traitor. I received a letter from Samuel, asking me to return. By the time I got back, the teahouse was full of corpses, Rye was gone, and you were going around town making an idiot of yourself.”

  Well, that explained a few things, but not what really mattered.

  “You think Rye is dead?” I asked.

  “I did. But…”

  “The girl.”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “The girl.”

  He was tired. Tired and frustrated. But there was something else. Something I recognized because I spent so much time wrestling with it myself. The kid was ashamed.

  “What did you do wrong?” I asked.

  He looked up, shocked that I’d read his mind so clearly. But, like most guilty men, he was eager to unburden himself.

  “It’s a risk every time, delivering this information. We need League members to know what they’re up against but there’s always a chance it goes the other way. It was my job to assess which members could be trusted. Looking at the Professor, knowing his mind, I thought there was no way he could…”

  “No way the kind-hearted teacher would turn himself into a monster? Of course not. A few weeks ago he was happy to fade into the darkness because he didn’t have a choice. Then you came along, Flyboy. You told him a story and you gave him a little bit of hope.”

  He nodded. He knew that when this whole thing wrapped up, there would be bloody fingerprints leading all the way back to the choices he’d made and the chances he’d missed. In truth, I was worried about the same thing.

  “Quit moping, kid, and let’s put our heads together. Have there been any other signs of him since you got back in town?”