Bone Song (19 page)

“Um. . . technically, yes.”

“Well,
technically
is good enough, wouldn't you say, Officer?”

“What's your name?” Harald's voice went very quiet. “I didn't catch it, Bone Listener.”

“Lexar Pinderwin. I hope you catch the bastards who did this.”

“I think we already have. At least the ones who carried out the physical act.”

Brixhan frowned.

“You mean,” said Lexar, “you've got the foot soldiers but not the principals who hired them.”

“Yeah,” said Harald. “That's what I mean.”

“Well, that's a start.”

“It is.” Harald blinked. “Any hints that you could give me might help us to track down those principals.”

“Dr. d'Alkarny did nothing wrong.” Lexar was staring at Brixhan.

“That's good.” Harald touched Brixhan on the shoulder. “She had a day diary, right? A list of appointments and such?”

“Um...Yes, I think...Well, yes, she did. It should be in her—”

“Go and fetch it for me, will you?”

“I don't—”

“Right now.”

Brixhan swallowed.

“Um, sure, Officer.”

“Take your time.”

With a last glance toward Lexar, Brixhan left. Harald counted to twenty, then walked over to the door and checked the metal-lined corridor outside. It was clear.

“All right.” Harald came back in, sat down, and waved at an empty seat. “Sit with me, Lexar.”

Lexar sat.

“And talk.”

“I won't gossip,” said Lexar. “Dr. d'Alkarny was the best examiner who ever—”

“And Mina was a friend of mine.” Harald leaned forward, and suddenly his gentle eyes went as hard as steel. “A close friend. I want to know
everything.
”

Lexar swallowed, then blinked several times, his eyes growing damp.

“I shouldn't have looked,” he said. “But she . . . There was a body in stasis, under orders. Dr. d'Alkarny wondered why.”

“Whose orders?”

“Um. . . I'm not sure. Is it important?” Lexar started to rise. “I can get the—”

“In a moment,” said Harald. “What is it you didn't want Brixhan to say?”

“He knows nothing. He only half-suspects, and that's because of something I said. He doesn't have the sensitivity to have felt it for himself.”

“What are you talking about?” Harald's tone took the sting out of the words. “Sensitivity to what?”

“To the traces left on her fingers, in her bones . . .”

Harald drew back. “Excuse me?”

“Dr. d'Alkarny did the autopsy,” said Lexar, “even though she was forbidden to by executive order.”

“You're sure of that?”

Lexar hesitated, then, “Yes, I'm sure of it.”

Harald stared around the room. If Brixhan came back, Harald was going to cuff him to a table and take Lexar outside, because this was important.

“Mina had focus,” said Harald. “Wouldn't you say?”

“Yes. Better than anyone I've met. Any Bone Listener.”

“Enough focus to hold a dying thought?”

“Oh, Thanatos . . .”

“To burn a dying image into her bones?”

“Yes.” Tears began to trickle down Lexar's cheeks. “Oh, yes. She was the best.”

Harald stood up.

“I want you to perform the autopsy.”

“No.” Lexar swallowed. “I'm only a junior—”

“I want you to carry out the autopsy right now.”

The rest of the team would arrive an hour later, while the autopsy was in progress. First they had to stop in the lowest subterranean level of cells, where the dwarves were fastened against the cold stone walls with silver bands.

Neither of them looked about to talk, not even when Xalia drifted close and ran her fingertips across their brains, reaching through their bony skulls. Donal reckoned, as he watched, that it was all Xalia could do to restrain herself from manifesting her long-nailed fingers and squeezing hard.

It just wouldn't have done anyone any good.

Donal made a phone call first, direct to the Archives, and spoke briefly to the Bone Listener he'd consulted with, Feoragh Carryn. There was a sadness in her voice overlaid with something more, but it took a minute for Donal to work out what it was. Feoragh was guilty with the knowledge that she'd caused Mina's death, or at least that was the way she saw it.

“No,” said Donal. “You talked to Dr. d'Alkarny because of me, to begin with. Let's not have any survivor's guilt here.”

“Please . . .”

“I'm sorry, but realize this. At one end of the causal chain are the people who carried out the attack, at another are my actions, and you're somewhere in the middle. There is no blame.”

“Yes.” Feoragh's voice sighed down the line like a breeze. “But while I know the theory behind your words, right now I believe none of it.”

“Then what will help?”

“Finding out who killed Mina, and why. And . . . dealing with them.”

“Good,” said Donal. “Then that's what we'll do.”

He put the phone down, seeing Feoragh in his mind's eye, imagining her going down into the Lattice and immersing herself in the bones' Archived memories, digging deeper and deeper. Whatever other result Mina d'Alkarny's death might have, it meant that one Bone Listener at least was probing the Archives with a resolution no one could match.

And whatever the Black Circle—or whatever the opposition called themselves—had intended, they were going to find a task force on their tail that would not stop.

Donal went down to the ground level of police HQ, past the glowering deathwolves on the main steps. FenSeven turned to Donal with a smoldering anger in his amber eyes: he'd heard of Mina's death at the Archives. Donal nodded.

The Vixen was waiting at the curb. She swung her passenger door up, and Donal climbed inside. Laura was already at the wheel, and as the door came down and clicked shut, she put the car into motion.

“Have the others left?” Donal looked back as HQ slid away behind them. “Viktor looked surprisingly edgy, after all he's been through.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'd have expected an adrenaline crash, you know? In reaction to everything. Especially since . . . I'd say he's quite fond of Sushana.”

The medics had taken Sushana away and made it plain that no visitors would be welcome for some time, probably days.

“Yeah,” said Laura. “But he was fond of Mina too.”

“Oh.”

Laura reached across for Donal's wrist, then placed his hand against her left breast.

“More normal,” she said, “than taking up with someone who has no heartbeat, wouldn't you say?”

“I love you.”

“Damn it.” Blinking, Laura shook her head. “That's not supposed to happen.”

Do—

Shh.

Donal withdrew his hand.

“And?”

“And, for Thanatos's sake, I damned well love you too. Good enough?”

“Yeah,” breathed Donal. “More than.”

The Vixen came to a halt and opened her doors.

“This is the place,” said Laura.

Aboveground, the Office of the Chief Medical Listener was a hunched blue stone building, with a smaller extension attached to the main body of the place. Only the twenty police cruisers parked at odd angles around the perimeter gave any clue to the events that had taken place in the subterranean levels of the Honeycomb, deeper down than the autopsy level where even now Mina's body was cut asunder, where the young Bone Listener who had admired Mina so much laid his hands upon her still-warm blood-slick bones, trying to read the message inscribed by agony within.

I
can't do it.” Lexar laid
aside the marrow saw. “There's nothing I—”

“You can.” Harald's voice was muffled by the surgical mask he wore. “Try again.”

“No. . .” Shuddering, Lexar forced his hands inside Mina's splayed-open corpse once more. “Ah . . .”

Lexar's eyelids fluttered.

“Shit.” Harald caught Lexar as he toppled over. “For Thanatos's sake.”

But Lexar stirred immediately and pushed himself away from Harald. He stood on his own feet, swaying.

“Two squat men,” he said. “Dwarves.”

Harald let out a breath. It confirmed what Laura had said on the phone about the two prisoners that Donal and Alexa had captured. Whether it could be used as evidence in a trial would depend on whether he could retroactively get this autopsy declared official.

“Ax,” Lexar added. “They had an ax.”

Harald shook his head.

Wonderful. Now we can interrogate every hardware supplier in Tristopolis.

This was less than useful.

Can't be more than a couple of thousand of 'em.

But Lexar's eyes cleared and he focused on Harald.

“No ordinary ax,” Lexar said. “This was a coherent hex-wave resonator. They don't exactly grow on trees.”

“Okay.” Harald stared down at Mina's corpse. “Good. That's something.”

“Looked Illurian to me,” said Lexar. “Well, to Mina . . .”

There was an odd pain in Lexar's voice, and Harald suspected that there were agonies involved here that only a Bone Listener could appreciate or understand. Then fingernails tapped against the clear-glass window inset in the autopsy-room door. It was Laura, standing outside.

A misty form drifted through the closed doorway.

“What?” Lexar's hand reached reflexively for one of his surgical cutting tools.

“She's a colleague.” Harald nodded. “Xalia, this is Lexar. He's a good man.”

Xalia drifted six feet away and rose a little toward the ceiling.

*Nice to meet you, Lexar.*

“I'm . . . pleased to meet you, Xalia. Pardon my reaction.”

But Xalia was already floating over Mina's corpse, and the shadow and hollows of her near-invisible face were as expressive of grief as Lexar's own.

*She was a good person.*

“Yes.”

Xalia rotated to face Harald.

*Viktor won't come in.*

“Can you blame him?”

*No . . .*

After a moment, Harald said, “I'll go out to him. Lexar?”

“I'm all right here. There's nothing more to do, except to . . . tidy her up, you know?”

“Make her look presentable.”

“Yes.” Lexar reached out to touch Mina's dead, intact face. “Presentable.”

A single tear grew in the corner of Harald's left eye.

*Are you—*

“Hardly.”

Xalia said nothing more but drifted almost to the ceiling as she watched Harald leave the autopsy room, trying to keep his feelings under control. He looked like someone who needed to be alone, and as a wraith who could float through walls and watch anything unobserved, Xalia had an unbreakable rule.

You did not spy on friends, ever.

*We'll track them down.*
She spoke to Lexar, who was hunched over the corpse, hesitating before closing up the great incision that split Mina's torso.
*Eventually we'll get them, including the ones who gave the orders.*

“Probably.”

Lexar's tone was empty, and Xalia understood what that signified: revenge meant nothing, justice in the courtroom sense meant nothing, because the only true justice would involve bringing Mina back to life. And that was something no Bone Listener or thaumaturge could ever do.

*Perhaps they'll end up here. On your table.*

At this, Lexar looked at Xalia.

“Yes. And if they're not quite dead, I can live with that.”

Xalia wondered what a Bone Listener could do with the feelings and nervous system of a person—an enemy—who was still alive.

*I'll see what I can do.*

Then she bowed her head, drifted upward through the ceiling, and was gone.

Laura was using the office that had been Mina's to make some phone calls. The first was to the hospital, where it took three transfers and several minutes of holding on the line—one nursing supervisor in particular was unimpressed by Laura's rank—before learning that Sushana was “critical, doing as well as expected.” Laura tried to think of a reply that expressed what she thought of that categorization, failed, and hung up.

Then Alexa came through the door and pushed it shut behind her.

“What's up?” said Laura, looking up from her chair.

“Um . . . I may be speaking out of line here.” Alexa paused.

“Or not.”

“Excuse me?”

“You're not speaking, Alexa. So what
is
up?”

“You and Donal.” Alexa swallowed, then continued quickly, “Was recruiting him your idea?”

“What are you getting at?”

“I know you're close. We—everyone—we think that's great, see . . .”

“Thanatos, Alexa. Will you spit it out?”

“It's just . . . I'm wondering about the timing. We get deeper into the Black Circle than ever before and trip something that causes a massive reaction. Breaking into this place.” Alexa gestured at the steel-covered walls. “That's bringing things out into the open, don't you think?”

Laura crossed her arms.

“What's Donal got to do with this? Other than the way he's cracked the case.”

“I'm not jealous of his success, if that's what you're thinking.” Alexa rubbed her eyes, and Laura reminded herself that living people require sleep.

“So what? I think you've got cause and effect mixed up.” Laura's voice sounded tenser than she'd intended. “Donal joined us first, and
then
we started unraveling threads.”

“Following lines of inquiry we'd already started.” Alexa shuffled her feet. “Sorry, but that's why I had to ask about Donal. Cause and effect . . .”

Laura held herself still, then: “Xalia and I virtually dragged Donal from a hospital bed. We had to work on him. Persuade him.”

“Well . . . thank you,” said Alexa. “You could've just told me to fuck off and mind my own business.”

“I nearly did.” Laura smiled, and waited until Alexa smiled back. “But you're really asking if Donal could have played me, manipulated me. And the answer is no.”

“Okay.”

Laura waited again. Then she pointed at an empty chair. “Sit down, why don't you.”

Alexa sat.

Laura stopped breathing. For the undead, respiration is unimportant.

“Shit,” said Alexa finally, and fumbled inside her jacket pocket.

“Here. You take this.”

She pulled out a bent pink file card and handed it over to Laura. The writing on the card was in purple ink, a Gothic style embellished with heavy curlicues. It read:
Placed in stasis by order of the office of Commr. A. Vilnar, Quintober 3, 6607.

Underneath, a different hand had added a note in burgundy.
Duration: indefinite.

Laura placed the card down on the desktop beside her.

“No need to ask whose body this referred to.”

Alexa bit her lip. “You trust Donal.”

“You were with him, chasing the body.” Laura frowned, strange highlights shifting through her eyes. “You're not saying Donal held back? That he could have caught them?”

“I . . .” Alexa blew out a breath. “None of the rest of us was even close. I think he did better than anyone could expect.”

“Well. Good.”

“And there's something else.”

“What's that?” said Laura.

“I did watch him run up those steps in the great skull, while I tried to follow.”

“So?”

“So he's got a great ass, and he's fit as hell.” Alexa grinned. “I'd say you're a lucky woman, boss.”

“Thanatos,” said Laura, but she was laughing despite herself. “Will you get the Hades out of here?”

Just as Alexa was rising, there was a knock on the door. It swung open, and Donal looked inside.

“Hi,” he said. “Am I interrupting something?”

Laura and Alexa looked at each other.

“No,”
they said in perfect unison, then lapsed into sputtering laughter.

“Sorry,” added Laura.

Donal looked at them for a moment, shook his head, disappeared back into the corridor, and closed the door. But he was smiling as he did it.

The smile faded as Donal continued down the corridor. He was glad that Laura and Alexa were friends, and Alexa seemed like a good person, or at least a good cop. Whether those two concepts were the same was a discussion for a lazy day.

But there had been something in the atmosphere in the room, something that indicated the laughter he had caused was partly in reaction to earlier tension. And the cause of the tension had been visible: the pink filing card, faceup on the desk beside Laura.

Donal had learned to read upside-down, sharing books in the orphanage. And his long-distance vision had always been acute. That was how, with a glance, he now knew that it was Commissioner Vilnar who had ordered Cortindo's body to be held in stasis.

“
Follow the paper trail,”
Laura had said.

The thing was, Vilnar
had
asked Donal to spy on the task force. And Laura suspected Vilnar. But none of this was proof.

A prickling crossed Donal's spine, and he turned around. A pale figure—a male Bone Listener—was watching from an open doorway.

“Can I help you?” said Donal.

“Um. . . it's about Dr. d'Alkarny.”

“And you are?”

“Brixhan Dektrolis. I'm not sure, but I think that one of my colleagues might be carrying out a postmortem on Dr. d'Alkarny.”

Donal said, “This is the OCML, isn't it? Where autopsies take place?”

“Of course it's—” Brixhan colored. “The person involved is not qualified, and I believe he might have had an emotional attachment to Dr. d'Alkarny.”

“Goodness.”

“Well, yes. It's a clear breach of professional—”

“I'll say. Listen, did you assist my colleague, Detective Ceerling? Alexa Ceerling?”

Brixhan blinked. “Yes, I unlocked the records room for—”

“And cross-checked with the”—Donal was going to say “the correspondence files,” then quickly changed his words—“tags in the Honeycomb? Just to make sure we've got the right body.”

“There's no mistake.” Brixhan frowned, probably trying to look authoritative. “The records are accurate.”

“Of course they are. You people do good work.” Donal let his gaze go unfocused. “Don't care for it myself.”

“A lot of people react that way.” Brixhan sounded smug. “We have the training, though.”

“We certainly need forensic geniuses.” Donal raised an eyebrow. “And people who know how to be professional. I think you're destined to go far.”

“Ah. Thank you, Lieutenant Riordan.”

So Brixhan had already learned Donal's name, though Donal hadn't introduced himself.

“Perhaps,” Donal said, letting his gaze drift toward the steel wall beyond which lay the autopsy rooms, “you'll go as far as Dr. d'Alkarny herself.”

Brixhan's mouth worked silently.

“Take it easy,” Donal added.

He hitched his jacket, being careful to let the butt of his Magnus show for just a second—it made Brixhan take an involuntary half step back—then turned and walked away, letting Brixhan make of his remarks whatever he wanted.

Unpleasant asshole.

But being a creep wasn't a major crime, more like a congenital disease. It had been a long time since Donal let people like Brixhan worry him.

Conversely, Donal knew that making an enemy of Commissioner Vilnar would not be worrying: it would be terrifying. He had respect for the man. But if Vilnar was involved with the Black Circle, then someone had to take him down.

On the edge of the lab area was a kind of antechamber that acted as a waiting room for civilians who needed to identify a body or otherwise assist. Donal had been there several times with relatives of victims—or in one case, in the company of a fat old lady who examined the soapy-looking body of the man thought to be her son, poked it with one gnarled finger, and said, “Looks like a piece a shit, doesn't he? Too good lookin' to be
my
boy, though. Nice try, Loot.”

He made his way there now, remembering the small acoustically shielded phone booth set against one wall. The room was empty, so Donal dug in his pocket for the seven-sided coins he needed, picked up the receiver, and fed the coins into the slot.

A woman's voice answered.

“Hello? Commissioner Vilnar's office.”

“Hi,” said Donal, realizing that he had no idea what Eyes's real name was. “Um . . . Is he in? This is Riordan.”