Angel Of The City (4 page)

He sees me checking my empty pockets and frowns, his hand moving to take back the plate he just set down in front of me. I grab his wrist, revealing my watch, and tap it with my finger. It
’s a shit deal for me. The watch, cheap as it is, is still worth four times the price of the food, but I’m hungry. He glances around nervously, then nods. I slip the timepiece off and hand it to him, holding it for a second as he grabs it. “Refills,” I say, lifting the cup. He nods again then quickly slips the watch into his apron pocket.

I stay for an hour, eating slowly and studying the station house, hoping for a flash of inspiration. But nothing comes. I only see one way in and one way out. The way in is going to hurt
—a lot. But it’s the way out that has me worried. For it to work she’ll have to cooperate, which means I have to trust in someone I’ve never met. And for me, trust is harder to come by than eggs.

W
hen I leave, I head north along Pestolosi Street, skirting the Heights to head toward the Huenta quarter. There’s a jewelry store in the two twelve I want to check out. I passed it by a few weeks ago and it looked promising. Higher end merchandise, but with substandard locks on the door. Assuming I’m able to do this job for Devon, I’m going to have to lay low for months afterward and I’ll need money. I don’t take any pride in being a thief, but it’s the only way I know to survive.

I pull my collar up against the wind, my mind preoccupied
on the One Twenty Seven. When I finally look up, I’ve crossed over into the Huenta quarter without realizing it, and something’s wrong. The streets aren’t nearly as crowded as they should be this time of day and there’s a tension in the air that makes the hair on my neck stand on end. I’m only four blocks deep into the quarter, still a dozen blocks from the jewelry store, but I decide to turn back. Too late.

P
eople suddenly come pouring out of the buildings on either side. Mostly men, but some women as well, grim faced and all carrying knives or machetes or thick pieces of lumber. They all have similar features; olive skin and thick black hair. Most of the men sport unkempt beards. I look back over my shoulder. Coming up behind me is a second crowd, darker skinned and mostly clean-shaven, but otherwise not much different and similarly armed. I’m caught in the middle. In everyone’s way.

A Counselor must be aware of his surroundings at all times
.

I spin around looking for a way out, but I’m surrounded on all sides. To my right is an abandoned building, its windows boarded up and a large cardboard sign on the door proclaiming ‘entry prohibited’ with the Council seal affixed. At least three rows of people stand between me and it.

There
’s a moment of silence as the two sides measure each other up, then a roar as they rush one another. I crouch down and run hard to my right, aiming for the knees. I manage to knock the first one down and fall flat on my stomach as the mob runs over me. Keeping down, I crawl as quickly as I can to the building. Above and around me I hear people screaming and cursing and occasionally, the sick, wet sound of sharp metal striking flesh.

At the front of the building I
’m able to stand, but the press of people is getting denser. I cling to the wall and work my way around to an alley. Men and boys run by me to join the fray, ignoring me for now. There’s a basement window boarded up and I kick at it, prying away the boards. Shattering the glass with my boot, I dive in, cutting my right arm in the process. I land in a pile of trash as the fighting outside becomes more intense.

Above the noise
, I can just make out the sound of whistles being blown. The Blueshirts have arrived, but in a riot of this size they won’t be able to do much. They’re no better armed than the rioters and not much more organized. But Counselors won’t act immediately. They’ll let the two sides wear each other down for a few hours before restoring order. I settle down on the cold concrete and wait for the inevitable.

I wish I had my watch. The battle has been going on all afternoon. I
’m not sure of the time, but the sun is now on the other side of the street. The alley had cleared out earlier, but now I hear the sound of struggling and take a cautious look out the window.

Five men have dragged a woman from the street into the alley. Young, with dark hair and eyes, she
’s already naked from the waist down. They haul her to the ground, four of them holding her while the fifth stands between her legs, grinning as he lowers his pants. A flash of turgid flesh and then he’s on top of her, grunting as the others laugh.

Rape is common
enough in the city, even though the Ministry has made it a capital crime and Counselors will shoot offenders as a matter of course. For warring clans, it’s more than just a sex crime; it’s a weapon. A woman raped by a member of an enemy clan will bring shame on her entire village. If she becomes pregnant from the act, it’s even worse. She and her family will become pariahs, outcasts. Left with no safe haven, many commit suicide. I’ve even heard stories of old women stripping and holding down girls from an enemy clan, while urging their own sons to violate her. I sit back down and close my eyes, unable to escape the sounds of the gang rape as the day drags on.

Sometime later I hear the rumble of trucks. The fighting is still going on, but with
considerably less intensity. The trucks come to a stop; the sound of boots on the ground. I stand with my back against the wall and wait for it. It doesn’t take long. A dozen heartbeats later and the staccato sound of automatic gunfire rips the air.

Cries and screams, which had been waning in the last hour, now intensify. I see the
shadows of legs go running past the window and risk a look outside. The girl is still on the ground, completely naked, her face swollen. Crowds of people rush by, but no one seems to notice her. The noise and commotion finally rouse her and she stands unsteadily to her feet. She tries to follow the fleeing mob, but she’s obviously disorientated, stumbling and bumping into those running to escape the shooting. She manages only two awkward steps before a bullet finds the back of her head. Her body flies forward and drops face down in the dirt. More shouting, more running until the alley is empty.

She lies only a few feet
from my window, her long dark hair blowing loosely in the wind. Death is a familiar sight in the city. Peek out of your window before morning curfew ends and you can catch the morgue wagons making their rounds. Open bed trucks, their headlights dim, prowl the streets at low speed, a man on either running board, peering with flashlights into the dark corners and alleys of the city. Illness, starvation, hypothermia, suicide; the catalogue of ways to die is a long one. But it won’t be reflected in the official reports, where all death is due to natural causes. Can’t upset the masses.

I sometimes think I
’ve seen more corpses than living people. After a while they all blend together. Just another part of the job. Yet gazing at the girl I find my mind wandering in ways it never did as a Counselor. Who was she? A daughter, certainly. A sister, maybe? A wife? A mother? Will some child wail tonight at the loss of the only source of human kindness it has ever known? Still, seems silly to grieve. What’s one child’s cry in a city of millions, especially when it will soon be joined by a chorus.

Almost too late, I see the glint of shiny black boots and spin away from the window, pressing my back against the wall. A flashli
ght shines in, its beam searching the basement. After a few minutes it’s gone and I hear steps receding back to the street.

I
make it back to the ninety-third precinct just after curfew, down the alley that runs alongside Reed’s jewelry store and up the fire escape to the third floor window. She opens the window to my persistent tapping.

“
Are you all right?” she asks as she helps pull me into her place.

The window opens into the kitchen and I slip off my coat and sit down at the table. I can smell pasta cooking.
“Fine. Just another day at the office.”

“
I thought maybe you weren’t going to come tonight.”

I grunt.
“And not get paid?”

She leans forward and grabs my head, kissing me deeply.

“Nice,” I say when she releases me. “But I still want the one-fifty.”

She smiles.
“It was one-thirty, and I’m far too generous with you.” She lifts my arm and examines the wound. Just a deep scratch. She doesn’t ask how I got it. She knows how I make my living. “I’ll get the iodine.”

She tends to me and I lean back, relaxing for the first time today. In the entire city, this is the only place I ever feel truly at ease. I can
’t live here officially of course and coming in and out of the front door would eventually arouse the suspicions of her neighbors, some of whom are almost certainly Blueshirt informers. So we take what time we can together. For a shade, this is as good as life gets.

She dabs my arm with disinfectant
as I try not to wince.

“
I heard there was some trouble in the one eighty.”

I nod.
“Riot. Counselors got involved.”

“
I’m not surprised. People are angry.”

“
People are always angry.”

“
This is different,” she says, putting her mouth to my ear. Even in your own home, there some things best said as a whisper. “They’re angry about the Angel’s arrest.”

I groan.
I’ve had about all the ‘Angel’ talk I can take for one day. “You too? She’s nothing, Reed; just the leader of a few malcontents, probably illiterate and no real threat to anyone, least of all the government.”

“
How do you know?”

“
Because if she was anything more the, Council would have dealt with her long before now.”

“
You give them too much credit.”

“
And you don’t give them enough. Anyway, I don’t feel like talking politics.”

“
You never do.”

There
’s a sting of accusation in her tone that I choose to ignore. Reed is smart enough not to criticize the government in public, but she isn’t shy about sharing her opinions with me. She hates the Council and everything it stands for. My thoughts on the subject are more nuanced. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” I say. “If the Council has her then it’s all over.”

“
Maybe for her,” she says, softly, “and that’s our loss. But there’ll be others. She’s shown that the quarters can work together.”

Over the last year, t
here’ve been rumors that this
Angel
has managed to get at least a few of the quarters to agree to join into some sort of loose association. I’ve never believed it. “Yeah,” I say. “I saw how well they worked together this afternoon.”

She shoots me a dirty look.

“I’m sorry, but I’m just being realistic. Even if she has managed to form alliances between quarters, it won’t last. The Council would never allow it.”

“
And how would they stop it, raze an entire quarter?”

The pot is frantically boiling. Reed is wonderful in many ways, but she
’s clumsy in the kitchen. A few months ago she burned her hand just making soup. I get up to tend to the pasta. “Yes,” I whisper in her ear as I pass.

After dinner we curl up together on the couch, listening to the wind howling between the buildings. Reed has
a DVL but we rarely turn it on. The twelve available channels offer only government-sanctioned news and ‘programs’ that are nothing more than Ministry propaganda, poorly disguised as morality plays.

She
’s reading. She always has a book in her hand, even though most are banned and she has to deal with the black market to get them. This one is badly beaten; a history book, by the cover—history before the city. I tease that her favorite subject is treason, but she doesn’t laugh.

Even with these books
—ones that haven’t been censored by the Ministry—she’s careful not to take the words at face value.
History is written by the victors,
she likes to remind me. I’m tempted to answer that maybe that was true long ago, in a past no one is allowed to remember, but there aren’t any victors anymore. Here there are only survivors. I’m tempted, but I keep my mouth shut.

I lay my hand on her knee and she smiles.
I need to return to the nest in the seventy-first and speak with Pen, but when she asks if I’m staying the night, I say yes. She puts down the book and takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom.

Much
later, I’m still awake as she sleeps by my side, her breathing deep and rhythmic, keeping tempo with the first drops of rain tapping lightly against the windowsill. It’s times like these that almost allow me to believe in a future for us, something more than just days spent in fear and nights passed in hiding. Sometimes I even permit myself the luxury of fantasy, a make believe life where I was never a Counselor and she was never what she was.

It
’s a dream I suppose—in the only way I can dream—and like all dreams, it’s a lie. That kind of a future doesn’t exist, not for us. Yet that small part of me that can still hope, doesn’t care. I let the fantasy play out in my mind, wallowing in it. Maybe it is a lie, but it’s a beautiful lie
My eyes open
to the sound of ice driving hard against the window. The rain has turned to sleet. Hours have passed. It’s the deepest part of the night, just before the dawn. A long roll of thunder follows a brief flash of lightening, momentarily illuminating the city. I close my eyes and try to find the dream again, but it’s gone, swallowed up by the real world like shadow into shade.

The next morning I’m already dressed when Reed wakes and stirs. She watches me lace up my boots. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“
I’ve got a job to do.”

“
In daylight?”