Bone Song (9 page)

“So I resisted the influence.” Donal looked down at the floor, remembering. “One kind of influence, anyway.”

“Cortindo sowed the seeds of what happened to you,” said Laura, “when he showed you the artist's bone. He did show you the bone, didn't he?”

“Thanatos, yeah. How did you know?”

Another ripple moved through Xalia's discorporate form. This time, Donal sensed no amusement in her.

“We investigated his office.” Laura nodded toward Xalia. “Every nook and cranny. It was no big extrapolation to work out what happened. We already knew you'd been ordered to go there.”

Donal stared at Laura's pale face, trying to read between her words. Without using Commissioner Vilnar's name, was she accusing him of being a member of the conspiracy? Or of abetting it without realizing?

Sister Felice was a long way down the ward, but Donal already knew how sensitive she was, how acute her hearing. It was best not to discuss specifics.

“So the only reason I've got for joining your team,” he said, “is because my current bosses are going to leave me twisting in the wind.”

*No.*
Xalia's insubstantial form drifted closer.
*That's not the only reason.*

“And the other is . . .”

Laura answered for Xalia. “She's talking about revenge.”

“Ah. That.”

After discussing a few specifics about the job offer, Laura said she wanted to check with Sister Felice regarding Donal's progress. Laura walked with Xalia beside her down to the nurses' station.

There was a brief discussion, which Donal observed, watching without making judgments. Then Laura returned, while Xalia remained hovering by Sister Felice.

“Nine days or nineteen,” Laura told Donal. “Or ninety, if that's what it takes to get you rehabituated. What's rehab like, anyway? Rewiring-body-and-mind thing, right?”

“Exercise and illusion, to restore the old patterns of thought and movement,” said Donal. “With plenty of pain, so you know it's doing you good.”

“Sounds . . . interesting.”

“Uh-huh.” Donal wondered what she was thinking. “You understand, I still haven't agreed to join you.”

“There's no rush.”

“All right.”

“So I wondered . . . You understand Xalia's nature, right?”

“What? That she's a freewraith?”

“Exactly. She's not bound to a crane or an elevator or a . . . wheelchair. She's a member of the team, not some kind of
device.
”

“Obviously. Though I think you don't know Gertie very well.”

“Who's Gertie?”

“Elevator Seven at HQ. Next time you ride up, tell her you know me.”

Laura's pale eyes narrowed. “A lot of cops wouldn't feel that way.”

“So they're assholes. It's 'cause they don't know any better.”

She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then spoke up. “I hope you decide to join us, Lieutenant Riordan.”

“Thank you.” Donal wondered what it was she hadn't said. “Thanks for coming out here.”

He watched her leave, accompanied by the wavering of the air that was Xalia. The heels of Laura's shoes were high stilettos, and the fit of her skirt was snug; her motion caused him a certain feeling in his gut that was unexpected.

“Oh. . .” Sister Felice was standing beside Donal's bed, her slit eyes widening into roundness. “I guess the lady commander made an impression on you, huh?”

“Not really.”

“Ha.” Sister Felice gave a tiny cat smile, allowing her claws to flick in and out a centimeter. “You are such a liar, Lieutenant.”

“Shit.”

“Oh, do we need to use the bedpan?”

“No,
we
don't.” Donal swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “But
I
am going to walk to the bathroom by myself.”

“Really?” Her eyes were slits once more.

“Yes.” Donal's voice was tight with pain.

“Good for you. If you fall over, just shout.”

On the following day, the liquefying patient called Andy, the man who had difficulty maintaining his normal form, began to scream softly. The sprites floating around his bed went wild, emitting banshee yells of their own, flaring from bright orange to blazing white and back again.

Sister Felice came running, stared at the silver bands wrapped around Andy's bed, and checked the intricate device that appeared welded into the bed frame. She hurried to the wall phone.

“Get Thaum Support here, stat. We have morph-support equipment failure.”

Donal sat up in his bed, watching but unable to do anything. Even Sister Felice appeared helpless now, as she reached toward Andy's bubbling form, then drew back, unwilling to disturb his equilibrium further.

Donal wondered what would happen if Andy's skin burst.

Soon a young man with pale, smooth Asian features was walking quickly into the department, with two older, gray-haired men following. All three wore rust-and-brown jerkins embossed with brass-colored runes.

Sister Felice said, “Thank Thanatos you're here, Kyushen. Can you fix it?”

The younger man, Kyushen, carried a steel toolbox. One of the older men nodded as Kyushen took a silver forked rod out of the chest and ran it above Andy's bed.

“The hex-flux integrity failed.” Kyushen looked up. “We can handle that.”

The three men worked swiftly, muttering about resonant frequencies and shifted octaves, replacing a blackened valve with a shining amber new one.

Suddenly a clear sheet of light passed across the bed, and Andy's suffering form shivered into stillness. His body was still distorted, but static.

“Good work,” said Sister Felice. “I'll call Dr. Drax, and we'll take it from here.”

“But it's fixed,” said Kyushen.

“I know. But”—Sister Felice pointed at Andy's twisted, elongated body, frozen in the bed—“he isn't.”

“Oh. The patient.”

“Just a little detail,” said Sister Felice, but she was smiling. “Like I said, leave it to us ordinary mortals. You thaumies go back to your labs.”

“All right.”

By the end of the week, Donal was hobbling around the silver lawn in thin mist (while mistwraiths floated around in odd patterns, murmuring encouragement) beneath a dark-purple sky. You couldn't call his motion running, not yet.

His firearm was in a secure locker somewhere—according to Sister Felice—so Donal did the next best thing. He stood at the lawn's edge, using an imaginary gun, visualizing the attacking figures in his mind's eye, feeling the imaginary pressure of the trigger and the recoil as he fired again and again into the shadows advancing on him.

Rehabituation continued, using pressure and psychic stress to reestablish the neural patterns of the preensorcelled Donal. Jan told him that the old patterns would reemerge stronger than before: a virtual guarantee that he would remain free of senility in old age.

On the third morning he hobbled to the nurses' station and asked Sister Lynkse if he could use the phone.

“Sure.”

She left him while he made the call. Silvery fingers seemed to play around the handset: he'd used a secure number.

*What can I do for you, Lieutenant?*

“Put me through to Commander Steele, please.”

*One moment.*

A strange sighing drifted down the line. Perhaps the countermeasures ached for the chance to defend against spikewraiths infiltrating the network.

*Putting you through.*

“Hello?”

“Commander Steele, this is Donal Riordan.”

“Lieutenant. Have you considered the job offer?”

“Yeah, and I'm accepting it.”

Again, the line sighed.

Then:
“Good,”
said Laura.
“Report for duty as soon as you're discharged.”

“All right.”

“I won't send you into anything strenuous until you're fully fit.”

“That's all right, I didn't expect to—”

The line went dead.

“Nice talking to you too,” said Donal to the silent receiver. “Rats.”

Sister Lynkse, returning, gave him a strange look.

“Just renewing my membership,” Donal said, “in the Rat Fancy Club.”

Half-revealing her slender fangs, Sister Lynkse gave a silent laugh.

“Kill some of those rats for me, okay?”

A black low-slung ambulance came to take him back to the city. The vehicle was wide, with flared housings along the running boards.

Sister Felice pushed Donal in the wheelchair he no longer needed, while Sister Lynkse walked alongside. They stopped at the edge of the dark-blue gravel drive.

The ambulance rear door rose up, and Donal stood. He kissed Sister Felice on the cheek and patted Sister Lynkse's hand.

“You're wonderful,” he said. “Both of you.”

“Well, we
knew
that.”

“Yeah.” He smiled at Sister Felice. “Look after yourself.”

“You too, Lieutenant.”

Two black-suited paramedics with bone-gray skins descended from the ambulance.

“I can climb in,” said Donal, “by myself.”

The paramedics watched in silence, unblinking, as Donal hauled himself into the rear compartment. He sat down on one of the stretchers that were fastened in place. The two paramedics locked gazes, exchanged some form of silent communication, then bowed to each other.

One of them climbed into the back and sat down on the opposite stretcher from Donal; the other returned to the front and slid into the driver's seat.

Sister Felice waved.

Donal blew her a kiss, and then the rear door lowered itself into place and clicked shut.

And that's that.

The ambulance rolled into motion, scrunching its way along blue gravel until it reached the road. The driver hauled the vehicle through a tight turn—the paramedic sitting opposite Donal gave a tiny grin—and then they were accelerating smoothly, back toward Tristopolis.

When they were a mile from the hospital grounds and the road was wide enough, the housings alongside the chassis split open. Bat wings unfurled, stretching to either side.

The engine note dropped as the front of the ambulance tipped up, gathering speed.

And the ambulance rose into the air.

T
he bat-winged ambulance howled low
over dank marshes until it reached the city limits, where the density of thaumaturgically charged airborne particles forced the vehicle down to the ground, for fear of a flameout in the engines.

Slowing to a normal crawl, the paramedic driver took the black ambulance through desolate west-side streets before reaching midtown.

“You live in Lower Halls, yes?” asked the paramedic riding in the back with Donal.

“Yeah, but . . . take me to HQ, why don't you?”

“HQ?”

“Police headquarters. It's Number One Avenue of the Basilisks.”

“Yes.” The paramedic's voice grew oddly sibilant. “We know where it is.”

He blinked: a slow, wet motion of nictitating membrane preceding the flicker of his eyelids. In the driver's seat up front, the other paramedic gave a slow nod.

Neither spoke a word for the remainder of the journey.

Donal exchanged greetings with FenSeven and another deathwolf that he didn't know well, FenNineBeth. FenSeven sniffed, tasting the air for evidence of Donal's health. Then his tongue lolled in a lupine grin.

Once inside, the first thing Donal did was descend to the gun range. Gertie made no smart remarks during the descent, and she was gentle pushing him out of her elevator shaft and into the corridor. It disconcerted Donal more than anything else might have.

Brian, behind the counter, his skin a healthy medium-blue, waved to Donal. “Hey, Lieutenant. How's life?”

“I've still got one,” said Donal. “And yourself?”

“I'm in the pink.” Brian patted his bald pate. “Or in the blue, at least.”

“And in the clear?”

“Lieutenant. Everything's clean. Really.”

“Good. Gimme two hundred rounds and a bunch of targets, mixed.”

“None of the, uh,
specials
?”

“Brian . . .”

“Just kidding. We're all legit here.”

Donal took the targets through to the range, sent the first of them back to maximum distance, then whipped out his Magnus and blew the target to shreds. He changed targets, reloaded, and got to work again.

Over and over he fired, blowing tightly clustered shots into the targets, until the air stank and his ammunition was gone.

Good enough.

Donal walked back to the elevator bank.

“Something new for me, Gertie. Down to minus twenty-seven.”

*Have you been a bad boy, Donal?*

“New job. I'm going to be working out of there from now on.”

*So you have been a bad boy.*

Donal said nothing more during the descent. Finally, Gertie brought him down slowly, slowly, toward minus 27, as if giving him time to reconsider.

At the doorway, Donal floated for a long moment while Gertie hesitated. Then:

*Your funeral, lover.*

She pushed him through.

A hulking figure was waiting for him. Donal recognized the guy from that time at the gun range, from before the debacle with the diva. Viktor Harman, who had claimed to be from the 77th Precinct.

“My name really is Viktor Harman,” the guy said now. “But I've never been inside the Seventy-seventh.”

“Okay . . . I'm guessing we have the same boss.”

“You're guessing right. Laura's looking forward to seeing you.”

Laura Steele's office was a glass-walled cube inside a large, gloomy workspace. When Donal entered, she looked up, and just for a second her eyes looked as gray and metallic as her name suggested. Then a change shifted inside her gaze.

“I thought you were only being discharged this morning.”

“I am. Was. I came straight here.”

“So what do you expect to be doing on your first day on the team?”

Donal looked out at the communal office: dark polished desks and ancient phones and Viktor Harman's hulking figure chatting to himself—no, to the wavering in the air that was Xalia.

“Don't tell me,” he said. “You have a bunch of really interesting files for me to read.”

“You got it.”

“And stuff you don't have written down?”

“Some of that too. But this”—Laura pointed at her own head—“isn't guaranteed indestructible. Most of it's down in writing somewhere.”

“Well, that's something.” Donal looked at her. “Who are we investigating?”

“We call them the Black Circle.”

“Yeah, I remember that much.”

“You looked woozy. I wasn't sure how much you'd recall.”

“Uh-huh. You mentioned Malfax Cortindo.”

Like some attenuated echo, he half-remembered a whispered
Do you feel the bones?
Then the disconcerting memory was gone, and he was back in the moment.

“Don't worry about the flashbacks,” said Laura. “They'll—Never mind. Not my business.”

She was right: this was none of her business.

“Malfax Cortindo,” said Donal. “You said he was part of the club. Part of the Black Circle.”

“Yeah, well. The BC—the name
is
embarrassing, right?—seems to include your favorite alderman. Some of the paper trail is in the files, as you'll see.”

“You mean Finross? I haven't had any dealings with him. Er . . . not directly.”

Donal's visit to the Energy Authority had happened because Alderman Finross had made the arrangement. That was one thing Donal would not forget.

“I'd guess they were trying to figure out how much you knew or how hard you were going to work to prevent the kill.”

Donal shook his head. He
hadn't
prevented the kill, had he? But his own remembered actions seemed like a stranger's.

“It was Commissioner Vilnar who contacted Finross initially, I think. You can't suspect the commissioner.”

Laura cocked her head to one side, saying nothing.

“Thanatos,” muttered Donal. “But he was the one who briefed me in the first place.”

“Well, he had to, didn't he? Once he'd been assigned to protect the diva. The orders didn't originate with him but the City Council.”

“Oh.”

“And that thought is most certainly
not
in writing. How well do you get along with the commissioner, Donal?”

“We're like”—Donal pretended to have difficulty crossing his fingers, as if they were repelling magnets—“that. Damn. Just like that.”

“Good answer. I should've asked you earlier.”

“Perhaps, Laura—If I can call you that.”

“What I think is, if you have to ask—”

“—it's probably too soon. So can I get you a cup of coffee, Commander?”

“Yeah. Black and strong.”

“You got it.”

Donal fetched coffee in ectofoam mugs and left one on Laura's desk. She was deep in phone conversation with someone now, but she'd left the door open, so it clearly wasn't confidential.

Going back out into the main office, sipping his too-hot coffee, Donal nodded to Viktor. Then he made his way to the only clean desk.

*That's mine.*

Suddenly the air was wavering in front of him.

*Yours is the messy one over there.*

A faint outline of a raised hand pointed.

“Thank you so much.”

Donal sat down, kicked a gray metal trash can into position, and slid the papers from the desktop, plus the old-fashioned blotter, straight into the can. Then he pulled open the tall lower drawer, designed for hanging files, and stuffed the trash can inside.

“There we are. All tidy.”

Donal pushed the drawer shut with his foot.

*Aren't you going to ask why I need a desk?*

Donal looked at her.

“Xalia, come on. I can see right through you. You're fishing for compliments.”

*Like I haven't heard that one before. But what do you mean?*

“You're solidly beautiful. You're gorgeous. Why wouldn't you have somewhere to sit?”

*Ha.You're a piece of work yourself, Donal Riordan—*

“Back at ya.”

*—But you're not fooling me. I know who you've really got your eye on.*

“I don't—”

But his gaze had already shifted toward the door of Laura's office before he could stop himself.

“Shit.”

*Ha.*

Then Viktor was returning to his desk with a flimsy report clutched in one big hand, and Xalia faded into near-invisibility. Donal pretended to find something interesting in the upper drawer of his new desk.

A detective, not part of the team, passed through the office. He was big, almost as big as Viktor, and his eyes were the color of slate—in fact, they appeared to be
made
of slate. Donal had seen stone lenses before, during his army days: they were sniper implants, and they were for life.

“Hey.” The big man stopped by Donal's desk, and offered his hand. “I'm Kresham.”

“Donal.”

Kresham's grip, like Viktor's, felt capable of crushing Donal's hand. “Good to meet ya.”

“Likewise.”

Kresham nodded, as though a one-word reply was a point in Donal's favor. Given the reticence of most snipers, that was probably the case.

Viktor said, “Who's on Blanz, then?”

“Harald's got him.”

“Long-range?”

“Yeah. I'm going back to my own desk, for some peace and quiet. Don't call me.”

Donal looked from one to the other.

“You guys wouldn't be talking about Sherman Blanz, would you?”

Viktor shrugged. “Why not?”

“Senator Sherman Blanz.”

“Right.”

“You have a visiting federal senator under surveillance.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shit.” A slow smile spread across Donal's face. “I think I'm going to enjoy it here, if we all stay out of jail long enough.”

*Ain't the jailhouse we have to worry about. It's the graveyard.*

Donal stared at Xalia, whose form seemed to grow as opaque as mist just for a second. He remembered that smartwraiths like Xalia would be classified as nonhuman under Blanz's proposed Vital Renewal Bill, with no more legal rights than a piece of furniture.

“But we wouldn't do anything illegal or bad to Blanz, would we?”

*We're professional police officers.*

“Even though Blanz is a cretinous bigoted motherfucker who deserves to die in long-lasting agony.”

*Even though.*

Donal let out a long breath.

“You guys got any other interesting surprises for me?”

“Dozens,” said Viktor. “But if we told you, they wouldn't be surprises.”

“Shit.”

That evening brought a different kind of surprise into Donal's life: the sudden experience of being homeless.

When he arrived at his neighborhood, no one paid him any attention, but that was business as usual. Walking past the washeteria, Fozzy's Rags, he saw old Mrs. MacZoran give a start at his appearance; then she turned and said something to the large woman sitting beside her. Behind them, the washing machines churned on.

Donal would have gone in to chat with her, but he'd drunk too much coffee and his guts were still shaky: he needed the bathroom. When he reached the apartment block and climbed to the fifth floor, he knew right away that something had changed, even before he saw and smelled the fresh coat of black paint on his front door.

A tiny handwritten label said
Davinia Strihen,
which meant it was no longer
his
front door, exactly.

For a moment, hand inside his jacket and resting on the butt of his Magnus, Donal was tempted to kick the lock out of the jamb. But this Strihen woman probably knew nothing of Donal Riordan, and she might be an old dear, liable to drop dead of a heart attack if he burst in.

“For fuck's sake.”

He went downstairs, pushed his way between cardboard boxes in the ground-level hallway, and made his way back to the super's office at the rear. That was a door he could kick in, and did.

It crashed open with a satisfying sound of splinters ripping from wood.

“Hey—”

“Right, fuckin' hey. What's up, Ferd?”

“Oh, Hades, Loot . . . er, Lieutenant. It was the landlord.

Bastard made me.”

“Made you do what, Ferd?”

Ferdinand was old and fat and hadn't shaved for ten or twelve days. If Donal needed a decent opponent to fight, Ferd wasn't it, and this wasn't the place.

The landlord lived a long way uptown from here.

“They said you was in the hospital. Didn't think you'd come out again.”

“Nice of everyone to care.”

“Yeah, well . . . we did. Old Mrs. MacZoran wanted to send flowers, but I didn't know where the hospital was.”

“Where's my stuff?”

“Oh, Thanat—Sorry. It's . . .” Ferd's voice trailed off, and he swallowed.

“You trashed it?”

“Hades, no. It's outside.”

“In the backyard.”

“No—I mean, yeah, but it wasn't my idea. Honest.”