I lurched up and cursed my luck, then myself. It was my fault, my choice to go the wrong way on a one-way street during rush hour.
I scuttled toward the south wall, narrowly dodging a burly block of a man with a face like a shovel. No doubt he was late for work as well, I would have empathized more had my dodging not slammed me into a poor old woman with a basket on her head.
“Oaf!” she said, and I nodded in agreement as she passed.
I pressed my back up against the stone of the south wall. Men and women streamed past me like a wave of blood beetles, though the comparison only worked if you gave the blood beetles hard boots and sharp elbows and removed their peripheral vision. I sucked in my gut and patted myself down to make sure nothing had been lost in the chaos. I was good: notepad, utility knife, dagger, coinpurse, magnifying loupe and other essentials were all still on my person.
I ran a hand down over my chest, confirming the rest of the good news. I had lost my cup of coffee in the melee, but the coffee itself was still with me. All I had to do was suck it out of my shirt.
I took a deep breath and told myself to stop whining. Taking my normal route would have guaranteed I’d show up late enough to lose my job; with this one, I probably had even odds. And I needed this job. Chief Investigator Vax wasn’t exactly utilizing my talents to the fullest, putting me on tracking down lost trinkets and pet lizards that had wandered off, but I got paid money to do it, and money is useful for all sorts of things, like living.
I spotted an opening in the mass of people and an intersection not far behind. I had to reach it, then head south until I hit Gallan’s Way, which was two-way at that point. The city’d open up a little then. I just needed to get through the carved-out corridors and passages, reach the huge open-air cavern that was Central Brantz. I darted forward, zigging and zagging, committed to making the shortcut worth it.
As I reached the corner I zagged south and my mind gave a little cheer to confirm my awesomeness. My lungs, on the other hand, deflated as I slammed into a slab of iron with legs. I careened back, barely managing to keep on my feet.
“Watch yourself, mook,” the slab said. He settled a hand against my chest and pushed, and I fell back against the east wall. Five pairs of eyes took me in as I took them in. Slab had friends, four other toughs, all young, all full of muscle and stupid. Each had a pointed silver cap on their right fang, had piercings through the nose and right ear, and sported a tattoo of a musca demon above their right eyebrow. And each looked at me with hard eyes, or at least eyes that were trying to be hard. They were as likely to be on the way to jobs as to Archmage training. Vax was probably figuring out some way that he could get me thrown into the Pot for dereliction of duty, and meanwhile I was stumbling through an obstacle course made of angry meat.
“Sorry about that, friend. My fault,” I said.
“Mebbe he should pay us a toll,” one of Slab’s friends said. His eyes were slightly shiftier than the rest. I guessed he was the creative one. They pressed up around me, and I started to weigh the possibilities. Tossed out those that led to excessive delay, excessive blood loss, an excessive blow to my ego. The remaining options weren’t enough to feed a maggot, so I went with the obvious.
“Maybe I should,” I said, digging through my coinpurse for a few copper, making sure to get a silver piece into the mix. “Here you go.” I thrust the handful of coins at the smallest of Slab’s friends. Maybe he was a little brother, maybe he was a hanger-on, but what he wouldn’t be is the guy who gets to carry all the clink.
Slab’s hand was still on my chest but he turned to the grub and let out a groan. “That’s mine,” he said, eying the bit of silver. Shifty was already reaching for it, though, and a moment later, they were pushing and scrambling and trying to remember enough math to split their new fortune, and I was a dozen feet away. It burned a little doing that, coughing up the clink, but I didn’t have time to get mixed up with them. I wasn’t in uniform. Flashing my badge might have worked, or might have prompted them to take a shiny new toy to play with.
Plus, I figured I had it coming, from a Great Wheel point of view. Maybe this meant I’d get to work on time, and Vax wouldn’t throw me into the Pot. Also, maybe I should put a bag over my head in case black diamonds started squirting out of my nose. The Great Wheel, like most religious mungo-jungo, wasn’t going to protect me here.
I turned south and I tried to squelch an idle thought about what the Strictures of the Wheel would say about my obstacle course. The Threefold Pattern, if I were the kind of fool to believe in such a thing, would suggest there was one more barrier in front of me.
I made it a whole twenty feet when I felt a presence come up from behind me, less massive than Slab but smelling of confidence. A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, then fell off as I spun around, anxious to get Obstacle Three over with. It was a cop — though I guess I should say fellow officer, given I was one myself, for a whole two months. The cop was older than I was, probably late 30s, with a body that was halfway between new cop lean and old cop flabby. The muscles were still there, but the belly suggested he was getting more than his share from the Pot.
“Investigator Axiom?” He withdrew his hand and took a step back, throwing me a cop stare — wary, without being sure of why.
“That’s correct, Officer Lohz,” I said, spying the name on his badge. A small blue lidless eye was on the emblem below it, meaning he was standard city patrol for the Northwestern Quad of Brantz. I choked back a sigh, wondering how long this was going to take. “How can I help you?”
The wariness ran out of his face. “Do you guys have any leads?”
“Leads? On what? The most interesting case I’ve had lately was finding a lost pet lizard.” I reminded myself it was that, and not an utter lack of professionalism, that was responsible for my being late for work so often.
He boggled a little bit at my question. “You mean you haven’t heard? They found a bunch of—”
“Hold up a minute. Do you see that?”
I motioned to the trouble stirring behind him. Slab and his friends were approaching a storefront, Hemma’s Ointments and Foodstuffs, with their heads down, murmuring to one another in low tones. Across from it an almost comically obese man stood up, hands outstretched to the ceiling, waving back and forth in a slow rhythm. Tattooed words of white and red ink stood out boldly from his dark brown chest and belly. I made out a “YOU ARE THE REASON” stretching from his upper left nipple to his left armpit, and a huge “THE END IS COMING” across the left side of his stomach. There was a long, deep scar stretching from his chin to his left ear. He hadn’t been there a few seconds ago.
Lohz swiveled and turned back, chuckling. “That old fart? He’s been there for the last three weeks, when he’s not in Hemma’s stuffing his face. You got any idea how to move him, you go for it. Tried ordering him, tried threatening him, but he says Babbuulua has commanded him to stay there.”
A long baton made of hardened vedicyl swung from his belt, right next to a steel broadsword. He patted the handle of the baton and frowned. “And I can’t bring myself to veducate him.” He snickered at the cop joke. “Heard the guy used to be a Hero of the Pits. Anyway, Investigator—”
I held up my hand. “Not the religious nut with the tattoos. Lohz. The toughs casing Hemma’s.”
He didn’t even glance back. Instead, he locked eyes with me, or tried to, but my focus was on the goons. Shifty noticed me watching them, whispered something, and they formed a little circle, backs to the rest of the world.
Lohz cleared his throat to try to get my attention. “Don’t you worry about that, Investigator. I see ‘em. It’s not a problem.”
“But—”
“Are you going to tell me what you know about the murders or not, Investigator?” He threw a lot of weight on that last word, in part to remind me that street crime wasn’t my responsibility, and partly to call my attention to …
“Murders?”
Lohz nodded, solemn.
“What in the Pits are you talking about? What murders?”
“Up near the Roof. Whole mess of farmers, I heard. Twenty, thirty dead. I have a cousin and a blood-sister up there, working for Ocondra. Just … really hoping they didn’t get mixed up in it.”
“Twenty or thirty? Are you sure?” It felt like someone had just kicked me in the stomach.
His face went flat and his shoulders dropped a little. “I … you know anything? I never heard of anything like that, not near the Roof. I heard there were kids there, too. Sick.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword and tightened around it.
I just frowned. “No, sorry. Don’t know anything.”
His face went hard again. “I guess they put Vax on it, huh?”
“Probably. I need to be going,” I said, meaning it. I’d been working through excuses for my tardiness, and realized that the excuse I’d manufactured along the way — a second cousin who had tragically overdosed on lauzaa while training for the Pits — wasn’t going to get me out of being late. Nothing short of a note from the Abbess was going to cut it.
I pointed behind him. “About the goons — I’ve been to Hemma’s before, he’s good people. Not to mention, he makes one helluva cream for toe boils, and his denicyl bread is the best in the quad. I don’t want to tell you your job, but —”
“I’m sure that the kids will enjoy it then,” he said, cop face back on, and turned around and walked past the toughs, through the intersection I’d been so proud to get to. A wave of workers parted around him like he was a stone in the middle of a stream, and he disappeared.
I chewed on my lower lip a bit. Hemma was a nice guy. I’d gambled with him once, and he didn’t complain at all when I took his money. Then I remembered that he wasn’t as thrilled as other store owners pretended to be about throwing free samples and free meals to the cops. I wasn’t sure whether this was all Lohz, or whether it went higher, but apparently Hemma was going to learn a little lesson about being grateful for public servants.
Lohz was right. I didn’t have time to deal with the goons, I had to run my ass to work. Thirty dead — no, not dead, murdered. Vax would need my help, assuming I could talk him into letting me keep my job. I sniffed the air, and it smelled vaguely of burnt tar and warm milk: I was already an hour late.
I needed to get to the precinct, and fast, which is why I was almost as surprised as Slab was when I found myself walking up to him and tapping him on the shoulder.
He turned to face me. “Hey, Mook’s back!” He beamed with pride at his creativity. “You want to go back the other way, Mook? That’s another toll.”
“No time for that. Beat it,” Slab said, shaking his head. He put his hand on my chest and I caught it, bending his wrist in a creative manner that I was sure Shifty would appreciate. Shifty and the three other toughs leaned forward, but backed off after I did a little more twisting. Slab’s groans and hand-waving probably had something to do with it.
“Slab’s right - I don’t have time for this, boys.” I had to talk fast, not give their little brains enough time to figure out that they could end the whole thing in a few seconds. If they went for me, Slab might get a broken wrist, but after his buddies tore my head off, he’d be able to comfort himself by using my neck as a privy.
Slab twisted in my grip and I realized that I didn’t have much time to make my point. I turned to the youngest one. I’d have laid three-to-one he wasn’t of Age yet.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. First, kid, you’re going to leave Hemma’s while I have a chat with your buddies. Scram.”
The kid snarled. “Screw you, Mook. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” The others, except for Slab, snarled in support. Slab just let go another groan, but he didn’t seem to have his heart in it. I bent Slab’s wrist a little bit more, and he fell to his knees and groaned like he meant it. It gave me a few extra seconds.
“I appreciate that, kid, sticking to your plan like that. Shows commitment. Like getting that tattoo and that piercing.” I eyed the silver loop through his right nostril. There was an engraving that read Doom, Death, Destruction. I had Slab’s wrist in both my hands, so I motioned at it with my nose.
“I know a guy who has metal just like that. Same lettering, though he’s a little more creative with the message. And that tattoo you all have. There are three or four dozen or so artists on the north side of Brantz good enough to do work like that, but no more than ten that would do it for your bunch. How hard you think it’s going to be for me to find them, then figure out who you all are?
The kid’s jaw dropped. Shifty shook his head and took a step forward.
“Demonshit, Mook. There are fifty guys—”
“—who would tattoo a musca demon on grubs like you? You don’t get something like that unless you’ve been down to the Pits, killed one yourself. No self-respecting artist would carve a musca on you without proof that you’d done the deed. And I don’t see the skulls on your belts.”
A couple cries of mumbling protest came up, but Shifty shot out his hand, and they quieted down.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Shifty asked. It wasn’t snotty, just curious, like maybe I had something here, maybe I didn’t, he just had to let it play out. My respect for him went up a grain or two.
I paused for a moment to pretend to think about it. Then I said, “I could tell you that I’m going to spend the next two or three days digging up who did your work, then who you are, and talk to your families, especially the kid’s, here. But I have a feeling my schedule is going to be booked.”
Shifty’s eyes went to Slab’s wrist, then back to me. “So, you let us off with a warning?” he said, with a tone that made it clear he knew it wasn’t that easy. My respect for him jumped another notch.
“Not quite. What I do is tell my buddy Stubnose that I’ve got five brave warriors ready to go to the Pits.”
Slab groaned a little bit, and I saw a lump in Shifty’s throat do a little dance. The other three gasped, understanding the implication — or maybe they were just surprised that their new buddy Mook knew one of the biggest Heroes alive today. They didn’t need to know we hadn’t exchanged than three words to each other in almost a year.
“We’ll get out of here immediately, sir,” Shifty said, and I let Slab go. My neck’s potential resemblance to a privy was no longer a problem. Slab stumbled back a little, and then he stood up, rubbing his wrist as he looked down at the ground.
I shook my head and creased my forehead, like it was killing me to do this to them. “I don’t think so. Stubnose told me he’s looking for some fresh meat to accompany him during his next sortie, and he’s going to be damned excited when I tell him about you all. You want a musca tattoo, time to kill a musca, boys. I heard that their teeth don’t actually slice through metal, it’s just a rumor. Stone, sure, but not metal.”
I cleared my throat. “That stuff about the seed they implant in your neck, though, afraid it’s true what bursts out of that.”
I could feel my words hanging in the air as they mulled it over. Stubnose was an Agent now, out of the Pits for a half-year or so, but I doubted they knew that. Besides, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t be going back in at some point.
The kid backed up like he was going to make a run for it, but I locked eyes with him. “Grub, I know what you look like.” I took out my Investigator badge, flashed it. “You think I’m not going to remember those three moles on your right cheek? The thumb-long scar right below the bend in your left ear? That brown diamond-shaped splotch on the back of your right hand? I describe you to Stub, Stub describes you to every other Pit warrior, eventually you’re headed down there, or into the Pot for dodging a Summons. You want to end up as dinner that badly? I don’t need to know your name or where you live, unless your plan is to hide in a hole for the next ten years.”
“Doesn’t have to be that way,” Shifty said softly.
I shrugged. “I need you off the street, boys.”
“They’re building a new rail line to Vargas, looking for workers,” he said. “I’ll be there tomorrow.” He turned his head right and left, looking at his buddies. “Can’t speak for these guys, but you check. Ask about Kahaz.” The kid nodded, then Slab, then the other two, and they all gave me their names. I wasn’t sure whether it was peer pressure or not, but maybe it didn’t matter.
I sniffed the air. The smell of burnt tar was getting weaker. I’d lost the ten minutes I’d saved through the shortcut, and then some. “I’ll be checking. I’m not bluffing, gentleman,” I said, only half sure that I was telling the truth. Though if I lost my job, I’d have plenty of time to make sure that they kept their promise. Unless they threw me into the Pot for dereliction, of course. Rarer these days, but hardly unheard of.
“Do you want your money back?” Bavoralak-nee-Slab asked, still rubbing his wrist.
“Keep it. You’ll need every bit of clink you can mooch to get those muscas removed. Trust me, you’ll be doing yourself a favor. A Hero sees that, he’ll pull you into the Pits without my help.”
I backed up and took another sniff. I was in trouble. The kids shuffled to the intersection, and I turned south.
I took a whole step before a huge flabby arm came up to block my way.
“You Are The Reason,” the fat man said. He shuffled in front of me. Huge red and white letters stood out starkly against the brown of his belly and chest. Among other things, they read FOR THE END IS AT HAND, YOU ARE THE REASON, THEY WILL NEVER STOP, and NONE CAN RESIST THE ADVENT.
I looked up past his belly and chest and stared into a pair of sad eyes. Sad, and disturbingly sane for a crazy person. He shook his head, and his huge jowls followed, a half-second behind.
“Investigator Axiom, The End Is At Hand.”
I nodded thoughtfully, then juked right and spun left as he tried to stay in front of me.
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Threefold Pattern?” I said as I walked backward. “Sorry, I just don’t have the time.” I turned around and broke into a trot, then a run, wondering what kind of odds I would lay that I was out of a job.
