Bronze Gods (2 page)

CHAPTER 1

W
AKING HAD NEVER BEEN EASY FOR
J
ANUS
M
IKANI; WHERE
others merely dreamt, he was seduced. His Ferisher blood brought visions of a different world than the one in which they lived. On rousing, he was left with a lingering headache and a sense of loss. That afternoon was no different as he wound his way through the thinning crowd toward South Ward Station, affectionately dubbed Southie. He paused at the corner to let an omnibus clatter past, blue eyes narrowed and hat braced against the breeze from its passage. Cradling the weathered cane under his arm, he resumed his trip and let his mind wander while force of habit guided his steps.

In his dreams, he was a gray knight, fighting for the honor of an icy, untouchable queen. By night, he wore dark, rumpled suits and fought against an unstoppable tide to control the city’s sins. Most members of the Criminal Investigation Division had trouble adapting to sleeping during the daylight hours, but he was, in truth, more at home in the darkness. Sometimes he wondered if his dreams weren’t truly glimpses of the world before, before the bearded strangers landed and the Courts splintered during the Iron Wars. Rarely, he’d heard of people dreaming future events, but never of the past.

Ah, well. I was ever backward.

Mikani shunned the steam coaches and hansoms that wound their way through the busier city streets, their rattling din mingling with the invective of pedestrians. The clamor had always seemed particularly out of place among the redbrick homes of South Ward; their tall, peaked roofs and simple lines had, for him, always evoked a time before steam and steel ruled supreme. A hansom chugged hard, then puffed out a cloud of tawny, bitter smoke and shuddered to a halt. Cursing roundly, the driver got out to check the boiler and ember sphere assembly, which drove all steam engines. The Houses kept close the secrets of binding fire elementals into the devices; other than what he’d once learned to keep an engine running smoothly, Mikani cared little for the hidden details. He moved past the driver and down the worn stone steps of the station.

Unlike most, he preferred the underground, likely from a combination of the comfort he’d always derived from dark places and his voyeuristic tendencies. After work, he sometimes surrendered to sleep as he rode the rails home, cocooned in the fading darkness until the rising din of the packed cars drove him out to find his way to his quiet cottage on the weathered cobblestone street, half-asleep and lost to the lure of dreams. It was a dangerous habit—an idiosyncrasy that would earn him an appointment with the headquarters mental examiner, should anyone report him. The demands of life as a Criminal Investigation Division inspector had wrecked more than one man’s mind; Mikani would claim it was the work that kept him half-sane.

His reflections were less grim half an hour later when he emerged from the fading warmth of a half-empty car and stepped onto the scuffed marble floor of Central Station’s main platform. The still air was redolent with oil and the scent of humanity. Wending his way through milling knots of people waiting for their trains and past columns whose carved reliefs he’d long since memorized, Mikani spotted a slender figure across the platform.

Celeste Ritsuko took the same car to headquarters each night, and she sat in the same seat. She wore her shiny raven hair parted on the left and bobbed neatly at chin level, and Mikani sometimes teased her that she used a slide rule to measure it. She used peach lip rouge to protect her mouth from the elements and nothing more in the way of adornment. She’d told Mikani that paint was a waste of time, better spent on other things.

Looking at her, it’s hard to believe she keeps a knife in her boot.

As she did every evening, she checked her attaché case and credentials. Her glance wandered over him from across the platform, and she pursed her lips in faint disapproval. But he reveled in his slept-in chic and resisted her efforts to improve him. Wearing a faint smile, she crossed to his side.

As they went up the stairs and into the cool night, he said, “The darker it gets, the prettier she looks.”

He gestured at the somber, baroque tower housing CID Headquarters, looming high above the neoclassic buildings and palazzi at the near edge of the park. HQ at Central was a relatively desirable assignment, second only to the Temple Constabulary Office. Other wards had higher crime rates, worse felons, and token law enforcement.

“Mmm.” When Ritsuko took that particular tone, she was already obsessing about work. The solitary trait they shared was the tendency to be consumed by the tragedies that filled their nights. They just dealt with it differently.

“Mind if we stop for a drink?” he asked.

Ritsuko checked her timepiece. “It’s fine. I’d hate for Electra to go a day without your pretty face.”

Mikani laughed. “True. It would be criminal.”

He had been buying his coffee from Electra for years. His favorite waitress was no delicate flower; her dark hair flowed to the small of her sturdy back. She had strong features, a sharp nose, and a determined chin, which probably contributed to her outcast state. As a daughter of the Summer Clan, wanderers who mysteriously appeared on the isles a scant century ago, she wasn’t supposed to settle—to serve drinks or read cards in the same places year after year. But Electra did as she pleased, part of the reason he liked her. With such incredible power through their control over the shipping and transportation industry, the Summer Clan could easily force her to comply with their edicts, but so far, they’d let her sow her wild oats. Mikani was sure the patriarchs imagined she would get rebellion out of her system and return to the fold in due time.

“I’m glad I stayed late,” the waitress said to him in greeting. “You’re a mess.”

“Espresso,” he ordered, grinning. “You know how I like it. But then you know that I’m always a mess, too.”

She fetched his drink, her brow furrowed. “A
different
mess. All red, black, and violet, frayed about the edges. That means bad things are headed your way.”

Beside him, Ritsuko made a scoffing noise. Mikani didn’t bother to read Electra, as she made her living from dire pronouncements. Half a dozen people would panic at such news. He wasn’t one of them as he’d seen her trick forty silver crescents from a mark, only to have some mundane tragedy revealed.

He shook his head. “No reading today, thanks.”

“Tomorrow,” Electra predicted.

Laughing, he took his drink in the ceramic cup she trusted him to return, one of the benefits of being a favored customer. He turned to Ritsuko, who said, “So tell me what you did last night.”

Mikani knew his romantic history fascinated his partner in a horrific sort of way. “Went home to an unmade bed and a note. Jane’s gone to visit her brother. Or so she claimed. I doubt I’ll ever hear her complain about my job again, though.”

He’d been first to bring his relationships into casual conversation; it had since become a ritual of closure. Over the years, his partner had met a few of his women, and Mikani remained friends with a scant handful. The disappointment never lasted for more than a week or two.

Awkward silence reigned between them for a few seconds. Then Ritsuko touched him on the shoulder. All around them, tradesmen and heirs, dilettantes and nouveau riche made their way to and from their gorgeous homes, their days finished with the encroachment of evening. Mikani paid them no mind.

“Surprise. I have a story, too. Warren moved out last week.”

He arched his brows at that bit of news. The memory of Jane’s angry eyes receded as he glanced over at his partner. “Warren?” They drifted apart as they rounded different sides of a gaggle of bodyguards and sycophants holding some noble scion in their midst. When they resumed their side-by-side position, he continued. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Even in sympathy, he couldn’t call her by her given name. “I thought nothing could come between the two of you.”

She watched a hansom rumble past before she answered, her steps matching his. “You were right. God forbid I ever say it again, but you were right. You know, all the times you said we were just using each other?” She sighed and juggled her bag unnecessarily. A telling cue, because Ritsuko did not fidget. “We just looked at each other over dinner one night and knew. That it was pointless.”

Mikani nodded. “I’m glad the two of you realized that in time. Now you can go and find someone worthwhile to build a future with. Someone completely unlike me.” He winked and touched the tip of his hat to her as he turned to HQ’s massive front doors.

“I feel guilty,” she said.

He paused midstep and angled a penetrating look at her. “Why?”

“Because I denied my grandfather’s dying wish . . . to see me settled with a respectable man. I followed my heart. And it led me to this.” Her almond-shaped brown eyes conveyed rueful sorrow. “I’m a ruined woman, unmarriageable by contract now, and for what gain?”

“I know it’s traditional for you to . . .” He trailed off, unsure how to best express the custom of choosing a mate from a buffet of dossiers compiled by the bride’s family.

“It’s the only way to safeguard our heritage and cultural identity,” she said.

But he could tell she was only parroting her grandfather; and her regret came from disappointing the old man in his last days. “For what gain? Freedom. If you’d accepted one of the choices your grandfather offered, you’d be bound for life, no matter how you felt.”

“True. The flat is emptier now than I realized it would be.” Her tone was almost soft, or the closest Ritsuko ever came to it. She appeared to realize her mistake at once and increased her pace. “Nearly time to start the madness.”

“That it is.” He stood at the top of the steps, looking up the elaborately carved stone of the building’s facade, toward recessed windows and decorative motifs in dark granite, darker than the smoke-attenuated night sky. “So. You don’t want me to hunt him down like a dog?”

Mikani enjoyed her startled expression. The little grin he tried to hide said it all; her glare spoke volumes on his sense of humor. Together, they entered the cathedral-like CID Headquarters, weathered gargoyles and carved Furies watching their passage.

As with any old, refurbished building, the fixtures were past their prime, and the gas lamps flickered at odd moments, throwing shadows that wavered with lives of their own. The dingy green tiles showed wear from the countless feet that had tramped up and down the aisles, being led to holding cells, shipped to the penal farms and exile . . . or if they were fortunate, bonded into the custody of someone willing to take responsibility for their misdeeds.

At night, a light crew worked in their department—Criminal Investigation Division, Park Ward—comprised of Mikani, his partner, Inspector Celeste Ritsuko, and Anatole, the man who mopped the floors. There were officers with other assignments down the hall, and other city wards and Council divisions, each located in its own hole in the sprawling complex. They all sacrificed their own officers nightly, lest the cogs of the great machine grow cluttered with criminals and the city shudder to a stop.

Night brought a particular madness, as they had quickly learned. All the depravity, mayhem, and deviance that hid itself from the day oozed into the streets like runoff from a sewer. And without fail, much of it landed on Mikani and Ritsuko.

Sometime later, he engrossed himself in piling documents on his desk, arranging them so they wouldn’t collapse in disarray too soon. Anatole and Ritsuko’s matched disapproval of this pastime only made it more appealing, but over the years, she’d learned to express her discontent with stern looks instead of nagging.

“The moment it falls, I’ll start filing them.” He did not even need to glance at his partner to know she was glaring at him.

Given the city’s tendencies, the silence rarely lasted long. So it was no surprise when a whoosh announced mail from the sorting facility—a system of pneumatic tubes permitted citizens to send messages and small packages back and forth throughout the sprawling city of Dorstaad. More sensitive correspondence was entrusted to a private courier. Ritsuko moved to fetch it, but Mikani already knew the gist. The incident report comprised the beginning of a tale unlikely to have a happy ending. Clumsy with the weariness of boredom, he ambled over to read across Ritsuko’s shoulder as sheaves of paper cascaded to the floor.

“We have a missing House scion,” she said.

He swore beneath his breath. Offspring of the great Houses tended to be spoiled, rarefied, and persuaded of their own importance. Given the power and wealth attached to their stations, he couldn’t entirely blame them, but drawing this case would complicate their lives. Leaving the mess of scattered documents, they hustled toward the lift, a monstrous cage of iron and bronze. Each time it groaned into motion, Mikani thought it might be preparing to tear free from its gears and pulleys to send them plummeting into darkness. But like a crotchety old woman, it did the job, just not without complaint. They alit on the subterranean level, where the sleek steel-and-brass cruisers were parked.