The streets were shining with moisture and the fog was so thick I couldn’t see more than five feet in any direction. Cislunar’s late autumn cold seeped beneath my tattered uniform coat and ragged wool sweater and clung like a damp shroud. Part of me was expecting to hear the scream. It was that kind of night in that part of town. But I wasn’t expecting it to come from a man or to keep going, gagging and groaning like the cully was being dragged down the block by a fishing gaff.
I didn’t particularly want to stop to investigate, but I was on duty and already in the doghouse with my higher-ups, so I followed my ears until I entered a small walled back court off Madder Alley. There, I skidded to a stop then and damn near fell on my arse.
The vic was laying on the cobblestones, doing his best to hold in his guts. Blood pooled around his midsection and steam rose off his entrails like mist. The smell was sickening.
I raised the tin Cislunar Watch whistle to my lips and blew a short alarm, then took a moment to discern as I lowered it.
Bad choice. The Line was hot and broken and balelight from the other side was spilling in so bright that I raised my hands to protect my eyes, as if mere flesh could somehow protect me from the ghastly, roiling pall of Perdition. A dark shape moved in front of the shining gap, and then the Line closed, neat and clean, leaving nothing but the faintest glow to indicate that there’d been a breach.
I gagged and sank into a crouch, dropping my head between my knees as I fought back a surge of nausea. I’d never looked directly into a breach before, and it was just as bad as they said it was. I felt like my stomach was climbing up my throat and the cobblestones were jogging sideways under my boots.
The grubby courtyard was still spinning when a hand clapped me on the shoulder and tightened like a vise.
“On your feet, pal.” The vise lifted me up and tossed me against a wall. I leaned against it and hoped my assailant aimed for my face, because my gut sure as hell wasn’t up for a punch yet.
“Who the — Sentinel?” The voice changed from hard to surprised. I opened my eyes, squinting at the square-faced woman who looked up from the brass Watch badge and silver Vigilance pin on my coat lapel and hastily released my shoulder. “Sorry about that, sen. Sergeant Jore Connas. You raised the alarm….?”
“Arcady Lorencz. Bright Street.” I forced myself to hold out a hand.
“Captain.” She nodded like she’d heard of me. If she’d been working the Dockside beat for long, she probably had. She was willing to shake my hand, though, so who knows. Her palm was hard with calluses and I felt a moment’s gratitude that she hadn’t punched me.
A murder of constables had gathered around the body behind her.
“Whistleup can’t stand a little blood, huh?” one of them murmured. The others laughed, hard and scornful. Their words kindled a spark of annoyance behind the nausea.
“I saw a transient,” I said. The constables stopped snickering and shot nervous glances around them, hands dropping to their clubs.
“Is it still here?” Connas demanded.
“No.” I wanted to lean on something — her or the wall or anything else that was handy — but what was left of my pride made me totter up to balance on my own two feet. “Not any more.” Despite the reek of salt and fish and garbage, the air tasted good and sweet and solid.
“Is there going to be a breach?”
“I think we’re safe.” I looked down. Sure enough, the man on the ground had stopped moving. Pain summons, blood satiates, death dismisses. I wondered if I could have saved him when I’d first stumbled into the courtyard, or if I would have even wanted to, if his agony had been attracting transients.
I looked around the small enclosure, just to make sure it was empty, then up at the tenement beside it. One window was lit and revealed a silhouette.
Sergeant Connas followed my gaze and grunted.
“You men secure the area,” she said. “And someone fetch Axton. Nobody touches the body until he’s had a look. Captain, do you want to join me?”
“Yes.” I rubbed my face with both hands. Might as well lend a hand while my stomach was settling.
“Think the transient gutted him?” she asked as we walked across the courtyard.
“Maybe …. I’ll be interested in hearing the medical examiner’s opinion.”
She made a noncommittal noise and pushed open the tenement door.
Buildings where the poor are crammed together ten to a room all the smell the same. They smell like my childhood: a thick fug of unwashed bodies, cheap gin, sweaty feet, vomit, waste, baby spit, stale cooking, and despair.
My stomach roiled again.
We stepped over the bodies huddled on the stairs and I called up a balelight. Places like this, members of the Watch can get milled for their boots and coats, and none of the hundred witnesses would have seen a thing. But it don’t happen so much to Watch sentinels. I floated the balelight directly over my head and made sure the pin on my lapel was on open display. People around us stared and muttered, but they left us alone.
Finding the window that overlooked the courtyard wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Places like this are rat-warrens of makeshift walls and new doorways. But at last Sergeant Connas pushed aside a curtain and found two dirty little chits staring at us, one young and the other younger, next to a window that looked to be in the right place. The girls had the ageless look of starving kids everywhere.
“Hi. I’m Connas, and this is Lorencz,” the sergeant said, her voice sounding a little gentler than it had before, which wasn’t saying much. “We’re investigating that murder down there. Did you see what happened?”
The younger girl looked at her sister, who shook her head.
“Didn’t see nothing,” the older sister said. I fought back a cynical smile, hearing my childhood in that familiar refrain, as well.
“We know he wasn’t killed by anyone in here,” I said, because that’s my job, no matter how pointless. “I was wondering if he might have been killed by a —a monster.” The Vigilance would object to the term, but it was a word a couple of kids would understand. I squatted, to get on their level. “Did you see a monster out there?”
“We didn’t see nothing,” the older girl repeated. The younger one shrugged, her eyes sliding toward the window. She’d seen something, but I could tell her sister wasn’t going to let her talk.
People were starting to crowd around, peering through the curtains.
“What’s your name?” Connas asked the girls.
“They’re Angie and Kay,” a woman’s voice volunteered behind us, her tone sharp. “Now leave the poor tips alone and blow.”
Murmurs of assent. I glanced at Connas. She nodded. That was our cue to leave. I stood, heard a crunch, and looked down. A piece of chalk had shattered under my shoe.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Leave us alone!” the older girl shouted, fists clenching. “Just go away!”
“We’re going, we’re going!” I raised my hands, wondering if I’d just broken their only toy.
“Do you know what happened out there?” Connas asked, turning to the woman who’d spoken. “Does anyone recognize the stiff?”
“His name is Jim Hanks, and good riddance to him,” the woman spat.
“Do you know what he does?”
“None of your business! Go on, get out of here.”
I sighed. No point in having a reputation if you’re not going to exploit it. I made a small beck, setting a wan balefire flame dancing over the palm of my hand.
“Captain…” Sergeant Connas took a nervous step backward. Guess she had heard of me, after all.
“My name is Captain Arcady Lorencz,” I told the onlookers, “and I want to be taken to where Mr. Hanks sleeps. Now.”