Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (9 page)

“
Look, man,” I said, “we’re only interested in finding this guy. We don’t have any agenda about making the collar. If we can find him for you, you’re welcome to bring him in or take him down.”

Auden raised a skeptical eyebrow. He didn’t say anything, though, so I continued. “You need our help to find him. We’ve got ways and means you don’t, but to use those skills, we also need all the information we can get. For us to be able to help you, you’ve got to help us.”

“
You’ve got copies of my reports.”

“
Reports are nothing but facts. We need more than that. You saw this Beast face to face. You can tell us things the written report can’t. As an investigator, you’ve gotta know that. Reading a written report is different from hearing a witness’s story firsthand. And a professional investigator is the best witness we could hope for.”

Auden stood. “You’ve got my reports. Read ’em.” He shouldered past me and left the bullpen. The door didn’t exactly slam behind him on the way out, but nobody in the room had any doubt that it had closed.

Morgan opened the file with Auden’s reports. “Six-four or so, maybe two-thirty, two-fifty pounds,” she read. “Dark skin, but not like a black or either kind of Indian, more grayish. And fast... He was, and I quote, ‘hellish fast. A couple of times, I could barely see him move, he was just a blur, like.’ When Auden ordered him to freeze, he smiled.”

“
With that speed, and being bulletproof,” said Rok, “I’d smile, too.”

We all thought about this for a moment.

“
We need to get to his motive,” said Morgan. “Why does he kill the people he kills? How does he pick them? When we find out how he finds them, we’ll find him.”

“
Don’t sound like Chief Adams was real big on religion, and the treasurer was an atheist,” said Rok. “Looks like the religious angle isn’t holding up.”

“
I dunno about that.” The sergeant who’d led our welcoming committee had crossed the office to join us. Her name tag said
Robles
. “Excuse me for intruding, but Investigator Auden had me looking into that a little this morning. Seems Treasurer Czernoff had been particularly hard-nosed about tax exemptions for churches and temples. Turned down a bunch of recent applications. Several groups were pretty pissed off about that. There were even a few demonstrations, and calls for his resignation.”

“
Any chance of that happening?” I asked.

Robles chuckled. I liked the sound. “Well, he’s permanently resigned now, isn’t he? But, no, Czernoff laughed in their faces. He wasn’t about to resign.”

“
What about Roth?” asked Morgan. “Would he have asked for Czernoff’s resignation, if the political pressure was stiff enough?”

“
No chance. Roth and Czernoff went back; he was one of Roth’s main men during the Takeover. Maybe if the council voted for it, Roth would consider it. But the churches involved didn’t have enough clout to take it that far.”

“
Any of ’em might be angry enough to hire a killer?” Rok asked.

Morgan looked at him. “You thinking this guy might be for hire?”

“
I’m just saying,” Rok said.

“
Professionals don’t usually leave a calling card, do they?” asked Robles. “And that’s an awful lot of jobs in a short time.”

“
Calling card might be good for business. Maybe some were random, just to add to the rep.” Rok was trying, but I could see he didn’t believe it either. “Okay, so it ain’t likely, but it ain’t impossible, either.”

“
On the religion angle, the other thing is,” Robles continued, “I was looking into the former chief’s finances...” She shook her head. “Seems shitty, like spying on your own chief, but you gotta cover all the bases. Anyway, I find out he’d been making large contributions to a couple of charities—the Rock Soup kitchen, and the Graceland Rehab Center.”

Rok shook his head. “Contributions to charities? That don’t seem very suspicious... Or are they bogus charities? Were they unusually big contributions or something?”

“
They’re legitimate, and no, the sums weren’t that big. No real stress on the chief’s wallet. The weird thing is, the chief was Episcopal, and both these places are run by the Church of the King.”

That wasn’t totally outrageous, but it was a bit odd. The Church of the King accepted Christians well enough, but the good feelings didn’t tend to go the other way. CoKs saw their god, Elvis, as just another incarnation of the same dying king they saw in Osiris, Dionysus, Jesus, or JFK, but the Christians tended to see theirs as the one and only, and regarded such syncretic sentiments as blasphemy.

“
What about the other victims’ friends, family?” I asked Robles. “Your people interviewed most of them, any of ’em seemed like there was more there, worth following up on?”

“
Maybe.” She consulted her notebook again. “I sorta thought it might be worth taking a closer look at the harlot, Mascarpone. She only joined the Marilynists recently, but she’d held several elected posts in the Guild. A real activist, and it sounds like she was kind of a spitfire. Probably pissed off any number of people along the way.”

“
Activists usually do.”

“
Could be a real rat’s nest there. I wonder about the teacher, too.”

“
Juan Castro?”

“
Too clean. Everybody we asked thought the sun shone out of his ass. Sounds too good to be true to me. Not a soul walking the earth hasn’t pissed somebody off, got some kinda dirt in their closet. Either some of these witnesses were lying, or we didn’t dig deep enough, talk to enough people.”

“
Unless it really was random,” said Morgan.

“
You want to assume it was random, Ma’am, you tell me, where do we start with an investigation?”

The “Ma’am” might have been respectful, or it might have been sarcastic; it was hard to tell. I could feel Morgan bristling. This could quickly get ugly again, so I held up a hand.

“
She’s right, Morgan,” I said. “If it’s really random, we’ve got no place to go with this. For the moment, we have to assume there’s some kind of method to the Beast’s madness.” Morgan scowled at me, but didn’t push the issue further. “Anything else?”

“
Don Whitehouse, second mate of the
Bay Queen
—that’s Hawthorne’s boat. He seemed like he was holding back on something. I’m thinking maybe they were doing a little private import-export on the side.”

“
Smuggling what?” asked Rok. “I thought everything was legal here.”

“
Legal, yeah, but taxed. Booze, tobacco, pot, you name it, if there’s a tax on it, there’s a profit in smuggling. Could go either way, too—tax-free coming in, or might be going out, to one of the ports where they’re not legal at all. Small-time fisherman like Hawthorne, even just a small shipment now and then could make a big difference to his bottom line.”

“
Might be worth a follow-up. What about Guardsman Fitch?”

Robles shot me a look that told me she wasn’t happy I’d brought that one up. “He was a right guy, a straight shooter. Everybody liked him.”

“
They all thought the sun shone out of his ass?” asked Morgan. “Sounds too good to be true.”

Robles looked at Morgan with a laser gaze. After a beat, she said, “I’ll thank you to remember you’re a guest in my city, Railwalker, and these are my people you’re talking about.”

Morgan came away from the wall and stepped toward the desk. “If it’s your city, then they’re all your people, aren’t they? Including the fucking Beast.”

“
Enough!” I put a Force into my voice as I spoke up and stepped between them. Morgan stepped back and Robles sat down again before either of them realized what I’d done. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rok trying not to smirk. “You,” I said to Robles, “don’t need your City Boss on your case because you picked a fight with a Railwalker. And you,” I turned to Morgan, “know better than to antagonize a city guardswoman when she’s cooperating.”

Both were breathing a little heavy and glowering, though they were each now studiously looking anywhere but at the other.

“
My associate’s rude way of expressing herself aside,” I said to Robles, “she’s right. Guardsmen make enemies. It comes with the territory.”

“
I never said he didn’t,” the sergeant allowed. “Sure, there might have been a few lowlifes who didn’t like Fitch much. But, hell... Even though he was career guard, nearly the Old Man’s age—due for retirement in another three years, he never made it above Guardsman First Class. He was never involved in any big cases, except as backup. Never made any important collars, nothing like that. Not too many people willing to kill over a few minor citations or traffic fines.”

“
Well,” I said, “we’ve got enough to get started on, anyway. We can leave Guardsman Fitch for the moment, and get working on the others—but we’ll come back to him. What were you thinking was your own next step?”

“
I was figuring on talking to Czernoff’s associates.”

“
Okay. Byer leave, Rok can join you on that. Morgan and I should check the sites of the murders. It isn’t likely we’ll find shades or spirits hanging around there at this late date, but you never know.”

Morgan and Rok both gave me a quizzical look, but I ignored them. I wasn’t going to say out loud that working with Sergeant Robles would be too distracting for me. Rok had eyes for no woman but Morgan, so it was safer this way.

INTERLUDE: THE GREAT CRASH

Volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, crop failures, economic collapse, riots, bombs, EMPs, monsters and zombies and domestic terrorists, oh, my. Where does one begin with the Great Crash? Why did it happen? Why all of it at once? Which parts were random disasters, and which human created?

Some historians would assert it was all human created. Fiscal and environmental irresponsibility certainly prepared the way for the disasters of that period. The economic situation in the states was already perilous when Hurricane Arthur hit the Gulf Coast. Arthur devastated much of Louisiana and Texas, areas barely recovered from Katrina a generation or so before. The oil distribution system collapsed, and riots began even before the bombs began exploding.

Terrorists, taking advantage of the mounting chaos, set off bombs in seven American cities, including one small nuclear bomb in a place called LA on the west coast. Another nuke was intended for Washington, but was intercepted by federal agents. The LA nuke was a low-yield, one-kiloton suitcase bomb, dropped from a civilian aircraft and detonated in the air. This had the result of spectacular and horrifying immediate local effects, but resulted in fewer casualties in the long run, since there was less widespread fallout.

The death toll was in the hundreds of thousands. Arizona, New Mexico, and northern California were flooded with refugees. Arizona was particularly hard hit, as prevailing winds had brought the plumes of fallout to some sections of that state. The scientists all predicted it would be twenty years before the area could be reclaimed, but they were wrong. Southern California would never be reclaimed. The following year, an earthquake resulted in much of Southern California being swallowed by the Pacific Ocean.

Crops were already failing around the world, a plague known as “colony collapse disorder” having wiped out most of the planet’s bees. Agricultural crops were not being pollinated. The effect of the LA nuke on the climate was not the nuclear winter a larger bomb would have produced, but harvests the world over were thinner in the following years, and within five years there was widespread starvation around the globe. Despite all this, recovery was considered possible until the volcanic eruptions.

Volcanoes throughout the Pacific Ring of Fire suddenly became active, spewing ash and smoke into the air that accomplished what the LA nuke had not. Global warming was no longer an issue, as temperatures cooled by an average of seven degrees for the next ten years. The death tolls would mount into the millions.

Finally, the anomalies began. Monsters appeared. Places slipped in time. Whole areas experienced an apparent twisting of the laws of physics.

The Great Crash: An Historical Perspective

Ronald Olsen, Errant Press, New Washington, 226 AC

9. THE BAR OF GOLD—
Five Weeks Ago

He was in the shape of a Mayacan sailor—there were many of those who hung around the Bar of Gold, so he’d be perfectly inconspicuous. The target was sitting with his first mate in a booth at the back. The place wasn’t crowded, and the booth next to them was empty. He ordered a beer at the bar, and then took it to the empty booth. He brought out a newsfeed, unrolled it, and laid the plastic sheet on the table. He began tapping his way idly through the pages as he pretended to sip the beer. Behind him, the captain of the
Bay Queen
and his mate were becoming quite drunk. There was something going on with them. Usually when these sailors got drunk they became louder, more boisterous. These two became quieter, their tones more serious and intense. But he could not make out more than a few words.