by H J Peterson
Hiro looked up at him, her mouth full of noodles and eel. “Hrgh?”
“You’re eating like you haven’t eaten all day,” Enrico said.
Hiro swallowed her food. She didn’t say anything.
“You… have eaten today, haven’t you?”
“I was busy, okay?” Hiro said. “Between Jonkers’ Press, Biermann, and Lord Dubois, I haven’t had a spare second.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Enrico asked. “My nonni sent me off with a little extra food, today. I would’ve shared with you.”
“It’s fine, really-“
“I’m going to tell her that you aren’t eating right,” Enrico said. “What’s your favorite Valtruscan meal? She’ll make it.”
Hiro sighed. “Enrico, what’s with you Valtruscans and food?”
“What’s with you Hanjans and starving yourselves?” Enrico retorted. “Food is life. Are you people against life?”
Hiro rolled her eyes, but she still smiled.
The door to the chief’s office opened and Berkowitz poked his head out. “Ikeda, Brooks: are the two of you done with statements?”
“Yes, sir,” Hiro said.
“You need us?” Brooks asked from his desk. He was eating his own meal: fried, breaded pork and a potato.
“Now,” Berkowitz said.
Hiro sighed and shoved some more food into her mouth.
“I’ll save it for you,” Enrico promised as she walked to Berkowitz’s office.
When she got there, she saw that Lord Dubois was, strangely, gone. Odd: she didn’t remember seeing him leave. Brooks walked in soon afterwards. If he noticed or cared that Lord Dubois was gone, he didn’t show it.
“What do you need, sir?” Brooks asked as he shut the door behind him.
“I need the two of you to get down to Florian and interrogate him,” Berkowitz said. “I want to know exactly what he knows about the Archangel and this New Dawn movement of his.”
“What about Lord Dubois?” Hiro asked.
Berkowitz raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”
“I think he knows more about the New Dawn than Florian,” Hiro said. “Frankly, sir, he seemed more like a pawn than a collaborator.”
“Well, Lord Dubois begs to differ,” Berkowitz said. “According to him, Florian was the one who suggested they bring the New Dawn into it in the first place.”
“And you believe him?”
“He hasn’t given me any reason to not,” Berkowitz said. “But, if Florian gives me a reason to not trust Dubois, believe me, I’ll drag Dubois right out of his house arrest and ask him a few more questions, myself. Any other questions?”
They were silent for a few seconds.
“Am I going to have to have a disciplinary hearing?” Hiro asked.
“Should you?” Berkowitz asked. “I might send you both to one if you don’t get downstairs in the next five seconds.”
“We’re going, we’re going,” Brooks said as he walked out, pulling Hiro after him. “Don’t worry: we’re going to get answers.”
Berkowitz grunted as they shut the door.
“You know, you really shouldn’t remind him about the whole disciplinary hearing thing,” Brooks said as they walked out of the bullpen and to the stairs. “Believe me: he’ll give you one if you let him.”
“Good to know,” Hiro said. “Should I be worried about it, then? You know: with what happened at Lord Dubois’?”
“I don’t think you have a damned thing to worry about,” Brooks said as they walked down the stairs to the prison cells. “You did what you had to do. And you saved a life in the process. I don’t think anyone can blame you for that.”
Hiro hoped he was right. He really hoped he was right.
They opened the door at the bottom of the stairs-
Hiro froze.
The guard they’d placed down there was dead, lying in a pool of his own blood. Throat slit. The door to Florian’s cell was open like an awful, gaping mouth.
Hiro ran forward and into the cell.
Florian was dead, just like the guard. Throat slit, just like the guard. His eyes were open, dead, glassy. Like a porcelain doll. The gash at his throat opened like a red grin. Blood pooled around his head, soaked his clothes. His body was splayed across the floor like a toy thrown by an angry child.
And on top of his chest sat a note.
Hiro slowly walked into the cell and picked up the note. Her hands were shaking as she picked it up and opened it.
“Hiro, what-“
“Dearest inspectors,” Hiro read out loud. “A storm is coming, one unlike the world has ever seen, before. Are you ready? Your obedient servant, the Archangel.”
She looked up at Brooks, remembering what Florian had said. About what Dubois had said. The Archangel was a revolutionary. He wanted to remake the world in his image. He wanted to see everyone who had half a chance in life dead. That included her, and it included Brooks. And it included just about everyone she knew and cared about.
“What… how…”
“Come on: we’re going to get Berkowitz,” Brooks said. “We’re going to lock this place down, and we’re going to find the sons of bitches that did this!”
They ran up the stairs, their boot steps echoing like thunder in Hiro’s ears.
“Start locking things down,” Brooks said once they got to the first floor. “I’m going to tell Berkowitz what happened.”
Hiro got out of the stairwell as Brooks continued up the stairs.
“Lock it down!” Hiro yelled as she ran through the main floor. “There’s been a breach! Lock it down!”
“What the hell do you mean, breach?” One of the men asked.
“What do you think I mean?” Hiro asked.
“Inspector Ikeda-“
She turned to look at whoever was behind her. “What?!”
Standing behind her was a young man. One of the interns was standing behind her. He was shrinking back, apparently afraid.
Hiro sighed. “I’m sorry: I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
“I… It’s okay,” the intern said. “There’s a man here to see you. He says you know him.”
“Who is it?”
“He said his name was Adelric Biermann.”
XX. ADELRIC
Adelric stared up at the ceiling of his holding cell, clutching his violin case against his chest, still very much haunted by what he’d done that night. His mind went through the scene with the fire escape over and over again, as if his mind thought that he would find some new evidence on whether or not he’d killed Klara. He remembered pulling the fire escape off of the building, pushing it down to the ground, Klara’s scream as she fell; he remembered it like it was happening in front of him, again, and the memory made him sick to his stomach. He hadn’t meant to kill anyone: the last thing he’d wanted to do since he murdered Lord Saaltz was to kill someone else.
He did his best to get those thoughts out of his head, though. The fact of the matter was, he didn’t actually know that Klara was dead, or that the person who chased him up the fire escape was even her: she could’ve survived that, if Bator got her to a Doc in time. Yes, she would be worse for wear, and she might even be crippled depending on how bad of a fall she took and whether or not she got to a good Doc, but she could still very well be alive.
Finally, the door to the cell opened and a very familiar face came into the room. It was Inspector Ikeda.
He sat up. “Inspector-“
“I’m only going to ask you one time,” Ikeda said. Her voice was dark, quiet. A voice he knew he wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of. “Did your friends have anything to do with this?”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” Ikeda snapped. “There are two men dead, and the Archangel had something to do with it. Are you honestly going to tell me that you didn’t know about it?”
“Yes: I’m honestly saying I didn’t know about it.” He looked down at his violi
n case. “Besides; they aren’t my friends: I was just there to pay the rent until I could get a real job.”
Ikeda didn’t believe him: it was obvious enough from the look on her face. That awful scowl that made him want to run and hide.
“Are you here to rat on them?” Ikeda asked.
Adelric found himself wincing at that word. Rat. Rats didn’t last long: they got killed in prison, which is where he would be going if they decided that his talking wasn’t enough for a merciful sentence.
“I talk in exchange for safety,” Adelric said. “If you can’t guarantee that I’m not going to get murdered in prison, we have nothing to say to each other.”
Ikeda really didn’t like that. She got a look to kill on her face as she pointed an accusing finger at him. “You aren’t in a position to negotiate! I could just chuck you into general population if I wanted to. How long do you think you would last?”
The answer came to Adelric’s mind almost immediately: not long.
“How am I supposed to know that you aren’t going to do that, anyway?” Adelric asked. “All I want is some assurance.”
“So do I,” Ikeda said. “What in the world are you doing here?”
Adelric looked down at his legs. They were still aching, throbbing just enough to remind him of what had happened. Of what was going to happen if he went to prison, or if he ended up back with Bator and Fekete Halál.
“I left evidence at the Saaltz crime scene,” Adelric said quietly. “Friedrich Eltz saw me as I was leaving Saaltz’s box. I didn’t kill him, and Bator found out. That’s what I’m doing here.”
“And who’s Bator?” Ikeda asked.
“He’s a mob boss,” Adelric said. “He runs his operations out of Medvye’s Pub, down by factory row. And now, he’s working with the Archangel. For the Archangel.”
“And what do you know about the Archangel?”
Adelric didn’t say anything.
Ikeda scratched the back of her ear. “You know, Biermann: I was under the impression that you were ready to talk. I’ve got more important things to do if you aren’t-“
“I think the Archangel might be a Doc,” Adelric said. “He also wears a plague doctor mask.”
“What makes you think he’s a Doc?” Ikeda asked. She seemed somewhat interested in what he had to say, now: it looked like this was what she actually wanted to know.
“His voice was really deep,” Adelric said.
Ikeda sighed and looked down at her feet. “Please, tell me you have more than that. Do you have any idea how hard it’ll be to find a male Doc in this city?”
“Actually, I have no idea whether or not the Archangel is a man or a woman,” Adelric said, a little embarrassed. “I think he’s a man, though. He didn’t look like he had…” He found himself motioning to his chest. When he realized what he was doing, he put his hands down to his lap and resisted the urge to go find a rock to climb under for the rest of his life.
Ikeda rolled her eyes, fully aware of what he was trying to say.
“So, the Archangel is a male Doc,” Ikeda said. “Anything else? Maybe a scar?”
Adelric shook his head. “He covers every inch of his body when he’s around people.”
She sighed. “I’ll be back.”
Ikeda walked over to the door of the holding cell, muttering something Adelric couldn’t understand under her breath.
“You really want to catch this Archangel guy, don’t you?” Adelric asked as she opened the door to leave.
She paused and looked over at him, a look to kill on her face. “Of course, I want to catch this bastard!”
“So, I guess you’ve never wondered whether or not he might be right about some things?” Adelric asked. He’d wondered plenty of times, himself. Yeah, his methods were extreme, but… well, would things really be so bad if the nobility weren’t around, anymore?
He remembered something that the Archangel told him when he saw him: I’ve seen enough dead nobles to know that they die the same way. If that was true, why did they deserve to be nobles, at all?
“Exterminating a whole class of people is wrong,” Ikeda said. “Believe me, this Archangel, whoever he is, is dead wrong.”
With that, she left, leaving Adelric alone.
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. She was right, of course. Killing people just for that was wrong.
Why, then, was it so hard for him to believe it, himself?
XXI. HIRO
“Why is it that something bad happens every damned time I send you to do something?” Berkowitz asked.
Hiro winced. He wasn’t wrong, she guessed, but she didn’t like the way he made it sound like it was on purpose.
“But would you really rather have everything go to plan, sir?” Brooks asked. “That sounds like a boring life, to me.”
Berkowitz gave him a look, as if trying to decide whether or not Brooks was joking. Then, he sighed. “It sounds like a life with less paperwork, to me.” He looked back at Hiro. “Tell me what happened. Every detail.”
“We went down to the basement to interrogate him, just as you asked,” Hiro said. “When we came down there, we found Florian and the man guarding his cell dead. Brooks came up here to warn you, and I went to place the station on lockdown. Biermann came back at around that time, and offered to talk. I interrogated him.”
“And what did he say?” Berkowitz asked.
“The Archangel is a Doc, and a gang called Fekete Halál is working with him,” Hiro said.
Brooks and Berkowitz gave each other a look. A look that told her that they knew something that she didn’t.
“What is it?” Hiro asked.
“How much do you know about the gangs in Königstadt?” Berkowitz asked.
“Well, I know that most of them were brought over by immigrants-“ Hiro began.
“Not that bullshit they teach at the academy, these days,” Berkowitz clarified. “The stuff that actually matters about them.”
Hiro didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
“Alliances,” Brooks said. “He’s talking about alliances.”
“I’m… afraid they didn’t say much about it at the academy,” Hiro admitted.
“Fekete Halál was one of the main allies of the Know Nothings, back in the day,” Berkowitz said. “It was those two and Red Fist against the world while Two-Face Maloye was still around. After he died, the three of them split. From what I know, they aren’t even on speaking terms, now.”
Hiro’s heart just about leaped out of her chest. “Wait: what gangs did you say were involved with the Know Nothings?”
Berkowitz raised an eyebrow. “Why? You look like you know something.”
“I… might,” Hiro said.
“What is it?” Berkowitz asked.
Hiro didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say, or how she was supposed to say it. “Sir, I know that this might not be possible with everything that’s happened, but… I need to check something out.”
“Alright: take Brooks with you.”
“Brooks can’t come,” Hiro said quickly.
Both of them gave her a look.
“He’s too familiar of a face around here,” Hiro said. “If he comes with me, I’m going to get exposed. And I can’t have that.”
“You sound like you’re talking about undercover work,” Berkowitz said. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Hiro didn’t say anything.
Berkowitz sighed and looked to Brooks. “Leave us. And If you give me some wise crack or start asking me questions, I’m going to feed you your own teeth.”
Brooks opened his mouth as if to argue, but he didn’t. He shut his mouth, and he walked out, shutting the door behind him.
“You want to tell me what this is all about?” Berkowitz asked.
“Sir, I-“
“Don’t tell me that you can’t tell me,” he said. “You know how much I hate hearing that? Believe it or not, this old man knows a thing or two, too.”
<
br /> Hiro still didn’t say anything.
“This has something to do with your brother, doesn’t it?”
Hiro’s mouth gaped open. “How did you-“
“I’m the police chief: I make it my business to know things like this,” Berkowitz said. “You’ve got two brothers: Ichirou and Aki. Ichirou, your eldest brother, is a worker at a fabric mill. He has prominent burn scars on the right side of his body, but the only one you can ever really see is the one on his neck. Courtesy of an accident at a smelting factory. Aki, however, is a little more interesting. He’s done a few stints in prison for crimes ranging from petty theft to attempted murder. An Alchemist aligned with Red Fist.”
“I… I… why did they let me graduate, then?” Hiro asked.
“Because I didn’t bother to tell anyone about it,” Berkowitz said. “Do you think he has anything to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” Hiro said. “I haven’t seen him in… years. I don’t even know where he is.”
“And you still want my leave to go?” Berkowitz asked.
Hiro didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, she sighed. “I know that it’s crazy, and I know that you have no reason to think I know what I’m doing-“
“Oh, I know you don’t know what you’re doing,” Berkowitz said. “But, something tells me that you aren’t going to care one way or another. And that you’re going to go no matter what I say.”
Hiro stayed silent.
He sighed. “Just… try to not get yourself killed, got it? I don’t feel much like doing more paperwork.”
***
Ichirou’s neighborhood was quiet at that time of night, just as it always was: everyone there was a factory worker of some sort, and all of them wanted sleep before the next day of work started. Ichirou’s own apartment wasn’t an exception…
Not normally, anyway. Judging by the fact that there were lights on in his apartment, he was still awake.
Since when does he stay up? She thought to herself as she walked into the building and went up to his door.
She knocked on the door.
Hiro had expected to see her brother Ichirou on the other side when the door opened. But, that wasn’t the face she saw on the other side of the door.