Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (48 page)

"Or bruised," she said. "You might be lucky."

Tried not to scream when she washed the places where his toe and
finger had once been. Replaced Sintra's field dressings with proper
bandages. Cleaned his swollen eye. His broken nose.

He stared at the ceiling as she pulled the towel back and gently
dabbed at his thighs. Past modesty.

"Oh, Finch," she said, betraying tenderness that had been disguised
by action before. "Who did this to you?"

"A Partial."

"How did you get away?"

"I killed him ... Will I live?"

Didn't answer. Just replaced the towel, said, "You have deep cuts on
your arms and legs." She began to wash and dress the wounds. The
warmth stung and comforted all at once. The smell of piss had faded.
There was an antiseptic feel to the air.

"Turn over now," she said. "I need to check your back."

With a groan, he managed that delicate maneuver. Ancient, creaky,
feather-weak.

"You have more cuts," she announced after a second. Her voice not quite as even. Not quite as under control. She'd stopped working. Knew
she was staring at him.

"Is it that bad?"

"I've seen worse," she managed.

"Can't even feel it," Finch said. Shock? Infection? Some last blessing
from Shriek?

She worked on him for long minutes. Finally, had him sit up.
Wrapped bandages around his ribs. Her head next to his. Her arms
stretched around him.

Slowly reached out to her. Wrapped his arms around her. Though it
hurt him.

Rathven held him. Held him like a friend. Solid. Comforting.

"Why are you doing this for me, Rathven?"

"You saved my life."

"I put you in danger."

"We both did."

"I have to tell you something," he said.

"Whatever you need," she said.

Understood that she might give him more than he had any right to
expect.

It was hard. Halting. But after he began, it was hard to stop. He told
her everything. All of it. Leaving nothing out. Sparing no one, least of
all himself. As if truly confessing. Needing it out of him.

He told her about the Lady in Blue. About how he'd left Stark. Wyte's
death. About Bliss. The Partial. How Shriek had come out of him.
About Sintra. Heard his voice. Detached, normal. Wondered how it
sounded to her. Rational? Insane?

She said nothing. Just held him. Listened. When he was done, she
gave him water. Made him eat a little. Then gently pushed him back
onto the cot. Whispered that she would bring him clean clothes soon.

He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

ading in and out of consciousness. Restless and exhausted. A
dryness to his skin. An attenuated feeling. The sense that he
could blow away in the wind. Did it come from Shriek? From having
given part of himself away? He didn't know.

Lying on a cot or sitting in a chair seemed like a kind of sloth. Also
a kind of gnawing ache that was half for Sintra and half, perversely,
for what the Lady in Blue had shown him. The sentimental thought
that he had never had a chance to tell Wyte about any of it.

Strange, but when he closed his eyes he had an image of the hotel
above them restored to its former grandeur. A concierge and porter in
the lobby. Someone behind the desk waiting to take his key. Sintra in
an evening gown. They'd be about to take a motored vehicle to the
opera. The streets would be busy with merchants and people coming
home from work. The buildings, the storefronts, would be bright and
cheery with lights. Like it had been in those mayfly beautiful moments
between wars, before the Rising.

Waiting for a bomb to fall through the ceiling. Waiting for Partials to
come up the tunnel to kill or arrest him. Waiting for salvation or disaster to
come tumbling out of the space between the towers.

When he couldn't stand what he was feeling, he shook the shadows
from his head. Went over to the map of Ambergris and the overlay.
Removed the globe and star chart to fit them on the main table.
Didn't know if it was Finch or Crossley who liked working on the
project. Or both.

Rathven had just left to get some more supplies. She'd told him it
was Sunday morning. Ordered him to get back on the cot.

Whatever is coming through the towers, the world will change again.

Still, for now, the world had only changed a little. He used a soft cloth
on the map to erase what had been lost. Slowly, with regret, removed the
Spit. Knew that even if parts survived, no one lived there now. Erased
the station. Removed the words "Wyte's apartment." Removed the words
"bell tower." Didn't think any of the detectives would ever go back there.
Each red mushroom on his map, he now changed to a symbol indicating a
fortified position. Added Stark's mushroom house, whether occupied now
or not. Added the towers in the bay, which he had resisted until he knew
they were complete. Out of fear? He didn't know.

Question: How could I know they would burn the body?

Answer: Because it would've been stupid for them not to.

The memory bulbs he'd eaten. The feel of Sintra's body beside him
in bed. The full and terrible force of Heretic's gaze. The Partial's scorn
for his weakness. The look in the Lady in Blue's eyes as she tried to
convince him. The ruined fortress.

Then: disrupting his thoughts, a flash of gold-green light. A fizzling,
popping sound. The sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs.

Finch stood up beside his map, grabbed his gun.

Bliss appeared at the edge of the carpet. Dark smudges on his face.
The ragged edges of his jacket had a burnt look to them. His dark
pants had darker stains on them.

"I should be more surprised," Finch said. And he wasn't. Just scared.
Another test to pass.

An odd dueling smugness and humility to Bliss's expression. "Rathven
has fewer secrets than she thinks, and I have more. You look well."

No indication from those eyes of what to expect.

"I look like shit. I feel like shit."

"Better that than dead," Bliss said, walking into the room. "Since
you're still alive, I assume the mission was successful."

"Wouldn't you know already?"

"The towers will be operational very soon. Then we'll know. Where's
the piece of metal Shriek used, Finch?"

"You've healed well," Finch said, ignoring him. "Almost as if I never
hit you."

Bliss pulled up a chair next to the map. "I took a vacation. Somewhere
remote. Somewhere I expected would be a little less . . . exciting ... than it was. An enigmatic smile. "I see you are busy changing the map.
A little premature, don't you think?" Bliss's features hardened. "The
mission is complete?"

"Yes," Finch admitted. "There were complications. But it's done."
Hesitant to tell him just how many complications.

Bliss nodded. "Nothing ever happens the way we think it will. Now,
where's that piece of metal?"

"I have a few questions first."

"Questions?"

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," Finch said. "In between passing
out. When I haven't been pissing blood. About things like whether
or not you really work for the rebels. Maybe Ethan Bliss does, but not
Dar Sardice."

A pause, then, as if deciding whether or not to play along with him.
Then: "Very good, Finch." "Keep going."

"You share information with the rebels, yes, but you don't work for
them. Even if they think so."

"Excellent, Finch!" A kind of forced cheeriness. "So who do I
work for?"

"You were Dar Sardice before you were Ethan Bliss. It's the oldest
name you're known by. You knew my father. You said you worked
with him. My father was deep in Kalif territory during much of the
campaign. Working on engineering projects for the Ambergris army.
Often shuttling back and forth behind the front lines. You met him
then, I think, not after he returned to Ambergris."

Bliss gave him a look of mingled regret and triumph. "You're right,
of course. I gave him that, actually." Nodded at the scimitar on the
table behind Finch, beside its scabbard. "A reward for his good service.
I was also your father's control in Ambergris. I ran him, along with
other sources. But he was the best."

"Ran him for who?" Wanted to hear Bliss say it.

"For the Kalif, of course. Always for the Kalif. The Kalif has a long
memory, Finch. And the Kalif never forgets anything. We turned your
father in the desert, and he stayed turned. But you knew that."

The question he'd been homing in on, the one he'd never been able
to ask his father: "Why did he do it?"

"He never told you? Why does anyone do anything? For money. For
love. For our children. Because we think it's right. Your father, he met
a woman. He had reservations about the war by then. He'd seen some
of the excesses of the Ambergrisian army, had never felt comfortable
with the power of the Hoegbottons before the war. And he'd lived in
the desert for a couple of years. Observed the traditions of a culture
thousands of years old. He was ready to fall in love-with all of it."

"And then what?"

An impassive gaze. "The woman died. Brutalized and killed by
Ambergrisian soldiers, apparently. Her body burned in a fire." A kind
of triumphant smile. "But you, Finch. You were saved from that fire.
You were less than a year old at the time."

A shifting feeling in his stomach. A distant sense of confusion.
Stared at Bliss across the maps. "That's a lie. My mother died in
childbirth. She was from Stockton. She had no family."

Bliss shrugged. "Believe what you like. Hoegbotton, Frankwrithe-
both right. Both wrong. Does it matter in the long run? Your father
worked for the Kalif. As for why, look around you, Finch. This is a
city founded on an attempted genocide, and everything that came out
of that. The Silence. The Wars of the Houses. The Rising. This place
is dangerous, Finch. Its people are dangerous. Ambergris will always
need a counterweight. First through Morrow and Frankwrithe &
Lewden. Now through the rebels, because the gray caps are in control.
Either that, or Ambergris tries to take over the world. One way or the
other. That's what the Kalif learned repulsing your offensive."

"Is that what my father believed?"

"That's what I believe. Your father believed that by playing both
sides against each other he was serving a greater good. I've never been
under that delusion."

Searching Bliss's guarded face for what was true. Trying to reject the
idea of further treacheries.

"You abandoned him, then. You let him take the fall when
Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe joined forces. I was there. He died
alone. Except for me."

Bliss shrugged. "I couldn't stop him from being found out. Just from
being found. Too many people on each side were talking, suddenly. But, Finch, he wouldn't let me help him. Wouldn't let me take him
out of Ambergris. Because of you. And because he was dying."

"But you made sure nobody got to him so he wouldn't talk."

"I did what I could."

Something clicked. Even on the run, when his father was dying, he
hadn't wanted Finch to contact anyone. No help from anyone. Because
he didn't trust anyone.

"He didn't want you getting near me," Finch said.

"I could've found you at any time, James Crossley," Bliss said,
leaning back.

"I wouldn't have worked for you. You couldn't have recruited me."

"Haven't I already?" Then shrugged. "But this is all beside the point.
Where's the piece of metal, Finch?"

A gun had appeared in Bliss's hand. His regretful look said, just
in case.

"Maybe I left it in the apartment. Maybe you should look there."

"Maybe you should just give it to me," Bliss said. "It's not the kind
of thing you want to leave lying around." Acid in his voice. A hard
glitter to the eyes that chilled Finch. But it didn't stop him.

"Mostly, though, Bliss, I keep thinking about how good you are at
finding things. You never told me that you were the one who found
Shriek. Gave him to the rebels. Do you want to explain that?"

Bliss sat back, tapping his foot against the floor. "You want the
truth? Shriek was dumb luck. A wild card. Something to hold in
reserve. He was like a spigot once I found a way to pry him out of his
protective shell. Like a man left on a desert island for a hundred years.
He would've talked to anyone."

"And you found him next to Samuel Tonsure's bones, of all people.
And then you `found' that magical strip of metal. The one that wasn't
made by us or by gray caps. You even found the doors before the rebels
did. Did you also tell them the soldiers in the HFZ weren't all dead,
just lost?"

A sly smile. "It's a skill, Finch. Finding things. Leveraging them.
My goals and the goals of the rebels are the same. For the moment.
Although it's a very long game we're playing here." The eyes not
smiling at all.

"Where did you find the metal?"

A hiss of impatience from Bliss. "I understand, Finch. I really do.
You won't be working for me. You don't care who your mother is. Your
father is a hero, not a traitor. Now just give me that fucking piece of
metal, or we'll do it the hard way. We'll do it the hardest possible way."