The Forgotten City (7 page)

“Why here?” she spoke aloud. “Why bring the body here? There’s other water, contaminated, but more accessible.”

“Guy’s a jackass,” Darius fumed about Knightsbridge.

“Forget it,” Croy said.

“Forget him! Who does he think he’s talking to? Crazy hunches? Who has the most closed cases and the most arrests
of all time
?” Darius said. “You and me! Everyone knows it. We walk into any place, anytime, and people move aside
for us
!”

“I don’t think this is about our reputation,” Croy said.

“Everything is about reputation,” Darius argued. “You turned Newton down, so now they’re trying to save face by pushing you, but I’m going to bash their heads in if they don’t quit.”

“Let it go, Darry. It really doesn’t matter,” Croy murmured, feeling the heaviness pressing inside her again.

“It matters,” Darius said, “to me – you matter.” He put his hand over hers on the handlebar of her dragger, but only for a second.

In her mind she was meeting Roth for the first time. He was a Conference assistant who had helped her and Darius drag Miriam Stover’s body, stiff with rigor, off the crusher spikes where she’d been impaled after jumping off the Saint Lawless Borough suspension bridge. She was a canker-grass addict and stank of incense. Their eyes had met over the corpse …
beginning at an end … there was never any chance …
Croy swallowed against feelings of painful sadness, manifesting as a dull throb in her chest – sadness because it was over, sadness because she had to start all over again and felt as though she had no emotional energy left. What sort of person was she even looking for? She glanced at her partner. There were feelings there for sure, there always had been an undercurrent, but she had never acted on it – afraid to make the first move and end up looking like an idiot, or worse, damaging their relationship. He was all she had in the world.

Darius revved up his dragger and took off, flying toward the circle of light at the top of the Filter. Croy pushed aside all the distracting thoughts and followed. They were going to the Crematorium, where she’d need all her wits about her, and then more.

D
eath had always spoken to Copernicus. From its silence, he heard echoes of the past; he saw answers in the bruises and blood. But these crime scene holograms told him nothing of patterns, of purpose or reasoning, fetish, fanaticism or passion. The images just hung in the air, together in time, yet fragmented. He knew there was a connection. He felt it, like a word on the tip of his tongue, a memory on the edge of remembering, but he couldn’t see it. He clenched his jaw so tightly he tasted the bitter venom from the fangs behind his teeth.

The confines of the transflyer prevented him from stepping back for a wider overview of the holograms open all around him. Santana, a former United Regiment commander, now leading what was left of the military force – renamed the United Resistance – had asked them to attend this crime scene at one of the UR refugee camps, but after the fight-in announcement, they hadn’t had the time, so Santana had sent through these images for his opinion. Copernicus understood that hunting killers and bringing them to justice wasn’t his job anymore, but also that it had never really been just a job.

The first row of shots were grainy surveillance pictures, taken by a slow rotation spyer, approximately five minutes apart. They showed a scullion-gypsy family of four reuniting after losing each other during the war. The overwhelming relief, the joy, on their faces was so real and intense that Copernicus even felt it stirring inside him. In the next image they were all still hugging, heading toward the room where the mother and daughter had been staying. In the shot after, through the partially open door of the room, the family were standing, their poses strangely rigid, their heads hanging low to their chests. The final image: they were all dead. Santana’s team had taken post-mortem shots, clearer holograms of the blood splatter and the injuries – three cut throats and one fatal stab wound to the heart; three murders, one suicide. Mother as the killer. Before dying, she’d scratched an X into her own forehead.

The transflyer bumped as Diega pulled up for landing inside the storm-break tunnel on the western side of Palace Sirenseron, as Jude had recommended. From growing up in the Palace, he knew that going in from the west would give them a chance to survey the rest of the grounds from a height advantage in case of ambush.

Copernicus glanced over at Diega turning down the
Ory’s
engines. She had more bruising around her neck and arms. She thought he didn’t know what she did to herself, but he could see it clearly. He just chose not to question it at this stage. As someone who’d been bashed senseless too many times, he failed to understand why someone would put themselves through it voluntarily, and until he could understand it he didn’t feel that he could speak with her about it. An autopsy of Diega’s issues, as well as his own, would have to wait until they weren’t under the immediate threat of death.

Silho leaned forward in her seat, looking over his shoulder to the holograms. Her warm fingertips brushed against his neck, sending nerves blazing like electric fire through his body – so hot it almost hurt. He’d never felt so out of control for a woman before – not even for the girlfriend who had cheated with Christy Shawe, the former gangster king, who had once been his best friend. He and Shawe had resolved old anger and reconnected during the battle against the Skreaf, and now he felt he could look objectively on this past. He remembered that even before the cheating, he’d always been sceptical of the word “love”. He’d felt like it was an indefinable emotion that people forced into a fabricated word to make more sense of their lives. But now he actually felt it –
love
– so powerful that it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on anything other than his need for her, not just to be near her, but with her. He needed to show her how he felt, otherwise he was going to lose his mind. All they needed was some time alone when somebody wasn’t trying to kill them. He would make it happen – after the fight-in.

“Scullions,” Silho said close to his ear. “They’re seeing a vision.”

Her words jolted him back to clarity. He hadn’t picked it up, but he should have – the people in the crime scene holograms were scullion seers.

Diega glanced over at the images and demanded, “How do you get ‘vision’ from them looking at the ground?”

“I grew up in the Matadori,” Silho reminded her. “We often camped near scullion settlements and towns, and I saw this all the time, groups of them standing together to strengthen their sight.”

Copernicus looked back and saw Jude watching Silho with some resentment in his eyes. He used his viper bloodline skills to study Jude’s heat pattern and the vibration of his thoughts. The Ar Antarian was burning up with anger. Copernicus had never seen Jude angry at Silho before – it had always been the aggravating opposite. So something must have changed. Something must have happened. Copernicus’ jealousy twitched, but he reasoned if Jude was furious, that could only mean he wasn’t getting what he wanted –
who
he wanted.  Silho.

“So,” Diega continued, “you’re saying – here they are happy back together, then they see a vision – and the mother goes crazy? That must have been some vision. Maybe they saw the gruel the camp cook was making for their dinner.”

Jude’s silver skin flushed. “You’re joking about the dead?”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize you were so religious,” Diega mocked.

“And I didn’t realize you were so heartless,” he shot back. “Seems to be the current trend with you women.”

“Either way,” Silho said, and Copernicus heard the tightness of her voice and sensed her body-heat flare up as well, “it’s never a good sign when the people with the strongest intuition about the future start killing themselves.”

Diega snorted. “Strongest intuition! Brabel, seriously – there’s no such thing as
seeing
the future. They’re a bunch of addicts, lunatics and charlatans.”

Usually Copernicus would have shared Diega’s cynicism, but something about Silho’s words kept him quiet. Since they’d defeated the Skreaf and returned from Woulghast, he’d had a bad feeling, an ominous ill-ease, as though something was following them, but every time he turned around there was nothing there. He hadn’t spoken to the others about it. They were already stressed and anxious enough as it was, and there was the possibility that his feelings were just a hangover from running so close to death in Woulghast – and that these hologram images just showed a random tragedy.

From the backseat, Eli stifled a half-giggle, half-cry. Copernicus glanced back at him. The imp-breed was staring at the holograms and looking green. Since becoming a tracker, Eli had been involved in many investigations of brutal murder, and Copernicus knew it got to him more than any of the others, but he’d never seen Eli so on edge before. The war had taken its toll on all of them.

“You with me, Eli?” he asked.

Eli immediately lifted his head and said, “No – I mean, yes. Yes. Definitely yes.”

He took his otter out of his pocket and wiped his nose on her, before realizing she wasn’t his handkerchief. He looked startled, embarrassed and apologetic to the otter, and Copernicus turned away pretending he hadn’t noticed.

“Good. Let’s move out, then,” he said to the other trackers.

He jumped down from the craft and stretched out his legs, flexing his toes inside his boots. He’d spent the past few hours training and getting strapped up. He felt ready to face Caesar. He wasn’t ego-blinded enough to think it wasn’t going to be a difficult fight, but he was confident he could take him. Caesar’s greatest advantage as a fighter was his speed – and Copernicus was faster. He’d proved that in the desert and he was sure the King of the Pride hadn’t forgotten either – so he already had a mental advantage.

From beside him, Diega called, “
Eizenef aregz’amon
,” and with a crack of magics morphed the
Ory-5
into a silver coin.

She started to push it into a pocket on her belt but Copernicus said, “No – hide it in your boot or somewhere. If something goes down and we lose our belts, I want to make certain we have transport.”

Diega nodded. Jude pointed to the sphere of light at the end of the storm-break tunnel and said, “There’s a viewing platform there that overlooks the palace gardens to the Hero’s Walk and Oberon’s Arena.”

“Take the lead,” Copernicus told him, and Jude gave what looked like a shrug of annoyance before complying. They moved out, their bootsteps echoing through the tunnel.

They came out where Jude had described – a thin balcony looking out over a vast expanse of garden and the great dome of the amphitheater glimmering in the new light of the sunsrise. The air behind and around the dome was blackened with the hordes of transflyers, mass-movers and flighted people descending in for the fight – and further still behind them, in the mists of the far distance, Palace Sirenseron rose imposing and magnificent into the clouds.

Copernicus sensed a sharp spike in Jude’s heat and looked over. He appeared composed and expressionless behind his black-lens glasses, metal arms crossed over his chest and SevenM perched on his shoulder, but inside he was a mess. It was no wonder. He had more reason than any of them to be stressed. Not only was he half-machine-breed, about to be completely surrounded by gangsters who had spent the last months slaughtering and imprisoning his kind, but he was also half-brother to the Androts’ fallen leader, Kry, as well as the heir to the Ar Antarian throne. He was the rightful king returning to the Palace, the home he’d fled from after his uncle found out his true bloodline and tried to have him killed. It was a lot to deal with in one hit. Copernicus considered that maybe this was the only reason behind his agitation, but the way Silho had been avoiding Jude’s eyes suggested otherwise. His body tensed. He wanted to know exactly what had happened – right now – but he restrained himself from questioning Jude. The team had to focus and stay together, at least a little longer. After the fight-in, he and Jude were going to have a conversation, and if he found out he’d done anything to Silho, there was going to be serious trouble. Best case scenario: Jude would be out of the trackers and out of their lives, permanently. Silho kept saying she was handling it, but Copernicus sensed the situation had gone beyond her control. She didn’t understand the way feelings could get twisted.

Eli was also watching Jude, but with concern rather than suspicion, and came out with the question most men, Copernicus admittedly included, were too afraid to ask.

“Are you okay, Jude?”

The Ar Antarian remained silent for several moments, looking as though he was wrestling with his words. Finally he said, “I’ve failed.”

“What do you mean?” Eli asked.

“The Androts … I should have done more to help them, to change things, but instead I hid.”

“You weren’t hiding!” Eli told him. “You went into Woulghast and saved the world!”

Jude pressed his lips together – it wasn’t enough. Copernicus understood. Jude felt called to the plight of the Androts.

“And you’ve been doing everything you can to help the machine-breeds ever since,” Eli continued.

“I should have done more!” Jude raised his voice. “I should have stepped into the war and tried to stop Kry or even helped him. Look at what’s happening to the machine-breeds now! Caged, beaten, starved, slaughtered – for what? The innocent suffering for the madness of a few …”

“And that’s why we’re here,” Copernicus said. “To fight Caesar and win their freedom.”

“And if you lose?” Jude asked. The question seemed to echo out over the vastness of the garden, amplifying Copernicus’ silence. Before, Jude would never have questioned him.

Eli’s stomach yodeled mournfully, Copernicus swallowed his ill-ease and Jude ran a hand over the Androt barcode on his neck. Copernicus eyed the mark – he’d told Jude he needed to cover it and that he needed to keep SevenM hidden. Clearly he wasn’t in the mood to be told, but it was for his safety and the safety of the whole team, and Copernicus wasn’t going to compromise that for anyone’s emotional turmoil.

“You want to free your people? Put the robot in your bag and cover your neck,” he said to Jude firmly enough for Eli to break out in red splotches.

For a moment he thought Jude was going to challenge him again, but then he relented just as Diega and Silho caught up with them.

Silho stared, awed by the vision of the palace before them. The red highlights of her hair glowed like strands of fire in the sunslight. Diega just drew her electrifier and said, “Are we doing this or what?”

“Arm up,” Copernicus responded, and they all unsheathed their weapons.

As Silho drew hers, a piece of paper fluttered out from her belt. She lunged for it, but Eli moved quicker, snatching it out of the air. He went to give it back to her, but she hesitated to take it. Copernicus sensed something strange about her heat pattern, an unusual flare of mixed feelings. He took the paper from Eli instead and opened it, he saw the words –
In my mother’s house are many mansions – Silho Brabel.

“I found it,” Silho told him, apprehension tightening her voice, “at the house. It has my name on it, but my father never knew that name. I thought maybe Bellum had put it there; maybe there was some kind of curse or enchant attached to it.”

Jude immediately took Silho’s shoulder, his anger at her forgotten. He turned her toward him to let SevenM check her. “Do you feel okay?” he asked.

“I think so,” Silho said, not meeting his eyes. She stepped back from him, but Jude stepped forward again, keeping his grip on her arms.

“You need to say if you don’t feel right.”

Diega rolled her eyes and Copernicus fought against the urge to drag Silho away from him.

Eli stepped in fast. “I can run some tests? See who or what wrote it?”

“Good,” Copernicus agreed. Eli took out a bag, and Copernicus dropped the letter inside. Silho’s eyes lifted from the paper to his. Jude watched the exchange.

“Time to go,” Copernicus said, he stepped over the edge and walked down the vertical slope to the gardens, while the others unfurled their hook-ropes and rappelled down.