Terminal World (11 page)

‘So that’s all it was. Simple protection racket, like I said. You fenced him the drugs or he turned you in.’

‘No,’ Quillon said carefully. ‘There was more to it than that. Fray helped me. Fray kept helping me. I owe more to him than just my freedom. That’s why I came to him this time.’

‘Helped you how?’

He couldn’t tell her about the wings, of course. Couldn’t explain how they had to be cut away, the wounds stitched closed, while the pain of the cutting - it could only be done under a weak local anaesthetic - caused Quillon to thrash and writhe on the makeshift operating table where Fray did his sterile knifework. All the while knowing that the wings would start regrowing almost immediately, and that this pain would have to be revisited upon him at increasingly short intervals.

He couldn’t tell her any of that.

‘He helped me to keep ahead of the people looking for me. That’s all.’

‘Sounds like he got the good side of the bargain.’

‘He didn’t,’ Quillon said.

They exited the steam-coach a few blocks further on. Meroka led him through the bustle of late-night revellers spilling out of bars and bordellos and gambling houses, barging through anyone who didn’t have the wisdom to get out of her way, Quillon following in the wake she opened up. Jugglers, fire-breathers and hustlers provided rowdy entertainment, while a big-busted woman with too much make-up was standing on a pile of crates, bellowing along to the music from a steam organ. The calliope had been wheeled into the middle of the street and was piping its way through a score punched onto cards, while its operator kept it stoked with wood and monitored the steam pressure. Quillon recognised the tune as belonging to the singer Blade.

‘I didn’t know they had her music down here,’ he said.

‘Got it arse over tit, Cutter. That tune’s been doing the rounds here for years. It’s Blade who’s picked up on it.’

He smiled at his ignorance. ‘I didn’t realise.’

‘City’s more complicated than people figure. Ain’t just shit and bricks crossing between the zones. Spend some time moving around and you realise that Spearpoint’s more like a living thing, with stuff flowing in all directions. Shouldn’t need to tell you how tangled up bodies get inside.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’ Quillon let Meroka pick a path through the hurlyburly. ‘You like it here, don’t you? In Spearpoint, I mean.’

‘Damn right I do. Left the place enough times. Got to be something dragging me back to it.’

The calliope stood in front of a pale green, wooden-boarded building with an elaborate portico and many red-painted balconies. Chains of pastel-coloured paper lanterns illuminated the frontage. A carved serpentine lizard lorded it over the entrance, entwined around a sign identifying the premises as the Red Dragon Bathhouse. Evidenced by the lights, and the amount of steam issuing from its windows and chimneys, the bathhouse was still open for business.

‘This is the place,’ Meroka said.

‘How do you know Tulwar’s going to be in?’

‘Tulwar’s always in. Being in is what Tulwar does. It’s sort of his party trick.’ She paused. ‘You got a strong stomach, Cutter?’

‘I’m a pathologist.’

‘Enough said.’

Meroka walked up the steps to the entrance and spoke quietly to the burly, long-whiskered doorman waiting under the portico. He gave

Quillon an appraising glance, then nodded once, admitting them into the bathhouse. Meroka clearly knew her way. She led Quillon along a winding corridor from which branched various steaming chambers, bathing pools and changing rooms. The air was oppressively humid, reeking with scented oils and perfumes. Quillon already felt stifled under his coat, sweat beading around his collar and forehead. He removed his glasses quickly, wiping and replacing them before Meroka had a chance to look at his eyes. Now and then a towelled patron passed them by - it was always a glistening, overweight man, ambling from one room to another. The bathhouse girls wore long silk dresses, their hair elevated off their necks by jewelled pins. They could have been made from wax.

At the end of the corridor was an office. Meroka knocked on the glass-panelled door and entered. There were two women in the office. An older woman sat behind a lavish leather-topped desk, dipping a pen into an inkwell as they arrived. Her grey hair was tied back with a floral-painted papier-mâché clasp. A much younger woman - one of the bathhouse girls - was in the process of being reprimanded, judging by the severe expression on the older woman’s face, and the way the younger one kept her head down, her chin trembling slightly as if she was trying hard not to cry.

‘Let this be a lesson, Iztle,’ the older woman said. ‘Go now, and we’ll speak no more of the matter. But I won’t give you the benefit of a second warning.’

The girl gathered her skirt and sidled out, moving as if she travelled on hidden castor wheels.

‘Ah, Meroka,’ the older woman said. ‘How unexpected of you to grace us again. Your charming presence has been much missed here in the bathhouse.’

‘Sorry I didn’t give you more notice, Madame Bistoury.’

‘It would have made precious little difference if you had.’ She pinched reading glasses from her nose. ‘Who, might I ask, is your companion?’

‘Name’s Quillon,’ Meroka said.

‘On his way up or down?’ Madame Bistoury scrutinised him carefully. ‘Down, I think; he doesn’t have the look of someone who’s been outside. You may remove your hat, sir. And it must be very difficult to see anything behind those heavily tinted spectacles.’

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Quillon said, touching a finger to the rim of his hat.

‘As you will.’

‘We came to see—’ Meroka began.

‘Tulwar, of course. Who else?’

‘I figured you’d be glad we didn’t come as clients, lowering the tone of the place and all.’

‘One must clutch at such crumbs of consolation, of course. How are you finding your guide, Mister Quillon - if that’s your surname? I trust you have a robust tolerance for profanity? All I will say in her defence is that Meroka was not always this way. Once, she could almost be allowed to circulate in polite society. I did warn her, of course. I’ve seen it so many times before. But she wouldn’t listen.’ She put the reading glasses back on and scratched something into one of the ledgers spread open on the desk. ‘Well, I won’t keep you. You know exactly where to find Tulwar. Do pass on my regards, won’t you?’

‘Count on it,’ Meroka answered.

‘Mister Quillon: good luck with the rest of your journey, wherever it takes you.’

‘Thank you,’ Quillon said.

They left Madame Bistoury to her accounting. Quillon said nothing, letting Meroka show him the way. She led him to a plain door in one of the corridors, marked for employees only. Two flights of stairs took them down into what could only be the basement, or part of it. It was oppressively warm, with only faint gaslight filtering down from windows at the top of the basement walls. Meroka walked across stone tiles to a heavy door with a circular, metal-barred window in its upper half. A dim orange light wavered through the glass. She hammered on the door.

‘Tulwar!’

The orange light was suddenly eclipsed. Now all was darkness beyond the door. There came a laboured shuffling sound, accompanied by a heavy, bellows-like wheezing. A man-shaped form, carrying a hand-lantern, loomed beyond the door. A metal cover slid aside beneath the barred window and a gruff voice spoke through it.

‘Wasn’t expecting you tonight, Meroka.’

Quillon recognised the accent as belonging to Steamville. It was softer, slower, more drawling than the way people spoke in Neon Heights.

‘We hit a few snags,’ Meroka said. ‘Are you going to let us in?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘I guess that depends on whether you want to keep on Fray’s good side or not, Tulwar.’

‘It’s always an idea.’

The speaker opened the door and hinged it wide enough to survey his visitors. A face, sinisterly underlit by the handheld lantern, hovered in the darkness. Quillon caught a wild white eye set into a deeply wrinkled socket. The other eye was lost in shadow. The rhythmic bellows sound that he had taken for breathing was, he now realised, nothing of the sort. It was definitely coming from the man but it continued uninterrupted even as he spoke.

Tulwar stood aside to let them pass through the door. It was even hotter in the main boiler room. Quillon made out the boiler’s vague presence, a squatting black kettle as large as a small house, an ever-devouring monster that would never be sated, no matter how much wood was stuffed into its belly. A labyrinth of ironwork pipes and return tubes threaded into the ceiling, distributing steam to all quarters of the Red Dragon Bathhouse.

Tulwar closed the door behind him. Quillon still couldn’t make out much of their new host.

‘You’ve been busy tonight,’ Tulwar said.

‘What gives you that idea?’ Meroka asked.

‘It’s all over town. Someone found a body on the train, and there’s talk of something going down in the railway station on the other side of the boundary.’

‘Fancy.’

‘You telling me you had nothing to do with any of that?’

‘All right. Maybe a bit. Let’s just say we’ve run into a few unforeseen complications with an extraction.’

The eye settled on Quillon. ‘This gentleman?’

‘Guy’s got half of the Celestial fucking Levels on his case.’

‘Special customer.’ The head nodded approvingly. ‘What’s he done to get on the wrong side of the angels?’

‘Better ask him. These aren’t your ordinary angels we were dealing with.’

‘I dealt with a few of the stranger variants in my time.’ Tulwar led them past the boiler, heat bleeding off it even though the stoking hole was currently shut. He paused and tapped the back of his hand against a pressure valve until the phosphorescent dial quivered back to its proper setting. The hand made a dull ringing tone, as of wood on metal. ‘But it was a long time ago.’

‘They’re infiltration units,’ Quillon said, feeling a prickle of uneasiness down in his belly. ‘That’s my understanding, anyway. Modified to be able to survive down in Neon Heights. No machines in their blood. They don’t have wings, either. Unless you see one up close, they’re normal enough to blend in.’ He paused and swallowed. ‘You’ve had much experience with angels?’

‘Fought and killed several hundred of them,’ Tulwar said offhandedly.

‘You were some kind of soldier?’

‘Some kind of soldier,’ Tulwar echoed. ‘I’m guessing Meroka didn’t fill you in about me?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘You’ll get the full picture soon enough. Mind you don’t trip on the cable.’

‘What cable?’

‘The one coming out of me.’

Tulwar escorted them out of the main boiler room into a separate annexe that appeared to serve as his quarters. He swung the door to behind him, but not completely shut. He placed the handheld lantern on a table in the middle of the room, then lit a slightly brighter version suspended from the ceiling. The filament flared in intensity, gradually dispelling some of the darkness. The table was circular and set with cards - arranged into the depleted regiments of some half-finished game - accompanied by a glass and a tall bottle of liquor with a sepia-coloured label Quillon didn’t recognise. The room was fractionally cooler than the adjacent boiler room, aided by a slowly rotating ceiling fan, which must have been driven by steam pressure. There was a serving hatch in one corner - presumably it led to the bathhouse kitchens - and a neatly made bed in the other.

‘My little abode,’ Tulwar said. ‘Sit yourselves down.’

‘We don’t have a lot of time to talk,’ Meroka said. ‘If we’re going to make the next connection for Horsetown—’

‘Have a seat anyway.’ The eye turned to fix itself on Quillon. ‘You too, whoever you are.’

‘Quillon.’ He took a chair, his mind reeling, but trying to let none of his consternation show on his face. Tulwar shuffled to one end of the room and slid open a cupboard under the serving hatch. There was a chink of glasses, then Tulwar came shuffling back. He put two new glasses down on the table and began pouring slugs from the bottle into them.

‘Line of work?’

‘I’m a doctor, a pathologist, from the Third District Morgue in Neon Heights.’

‘How did a doctor get mixed up in something that meant he had to get out of Spearpoint?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘No one’s going anywhere for a moment.’ Tulwar pushed one of the glasses at Quillon and the other towards Meroka. ‘Drink up. I’m sure you could both use some.’

‘We’re taking antizonals,’ Quillon said, even as Meroka downed half her glass in a single gulp.

‘So am I. The liquor won’t be the thing that kills you.’ With something close to menace Tulwar added, ‘Bottoms up.’

Tulwar pulled up his own seat and sat opposite them, giving Quillon the first chance to get a good look at him. He controlled his reaction as best he could, but Tulwar was not for the faint-hearted. He was a big man, largely hairless, clearly older than Quillon or Fray, but his age was otherwise hard to judge. He only had one visible eye. The right one was lost behind an eyepatch seemingly made of cast iron, leather and wood, the patch extending around the side of his face, down to his cheek and up to his temples. There were two rectangular metal plates on either side of his skull, secured with screws. Only his right arm - the one that had been holding the lantern - was living; his other arm was a mechanical prosthesis connected by a heavy shoulder harness of leather and metal. The arm was human in shape, ending in a wooden hand with elegantly jointed fingers, tensioned wire tendons running in grooves in the wood.

Tulwar wore a white blouse shirt, unbuttoned halfway down his chest. Covering most of his torso was some kind of buckled-on apparatus, a green-painted chest-plate mottled with rust and condensation, with steam-pressure dials twitching under thick glass. The bellows sound, Quillon now realised, was coming from inside that machinery. A segmented copper hose emerged from one side of it and trailed off across the floor and through the gap where Tulwar had left the door ajar.