Daniel Polansky - Low Town

Dried blood was caked below my nose. “Not interested in taking your turn?”

“The dead man-he was responsible for the girl?”

I nodded.

“How did you know?”

“Everybody knew,” I said. “We just weren’t telling you about it.”

He rolled his eyes and stomped out.

I spent about an hour and a half in the chair, wincing from the pain in my skull and trying to figure out how many of my ribs were broken. Three was my best guess, but without the use of my hands it was tough to be sure. I thought about slipping my chains as a fuck you to Crispin and the rest of his crew, but it seemed a petty sort of revenge and one likely to earn another beating.

Eventually the door opened and Crispin entered, a dark look on his face. He took the seat opposite me.

“They won’t touch it,” he said.

If I was a little slow on the uptake, it was understandable given the circumstances. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that as far as Black House is concerned, this matter is closed. Zhange Jue, mill worker and occasional hired thug, was the murderer of Tara Potgieter and several other girls, identities to be determined. He was killed by person or persons unknown in a manner that has yet to be established. You came across the person or persons engaged in the murder but were knocked unconscious before you could ascertain their identity or identities.”

“Person or persons unknown? Are you out of your fucking mind? You think the Kiren was stabbed to death? You know as well as I do this reeks of the Art.”

“I know.”

“Even the brass can’t be so stupid as to think otherwise.”

“They aren’t.”

“Then what are you talking about, ‘the matter is closed’?”

Crispin rubbed at his temples as if to alleviate some hidden pain. “You worked here long enough-do I have to spell it out for you? No one’s looking to get himself involved in something this ugly, not on the say-so of a drug dealer. The Kiren killed Tara, and now he’s dead. End of story.”

It had been a long time since I’d come across an outrage I was insufficiently jaded to accept. “I get it-no one cares about the dead child. Why would they? She’s just another slum kid. But there’s something loose in Low Town that was spat out from the heart of the void. People need to know.”

“No one’s ever going to know. They’ll burn the body and you’ll keep your mouth shut and after a while it’ll disappear.”

“If you think this thing is done, then you’re as stupid as your superiors.”

“You know so much?”

“I knew enough to find Tara’s murderer while the rest of you were up here holding your dicks.”

“And why don’t you tell me how exactly that happened-or am I to believe you were wandering through the back alleys of Kirentown and bumped into the man responsible for the body you found two days ago?”

“No, Crispin, obviously I was tracking him down. I assumed that being a member of an elite investigative organization, you wouldn’t need the situation spelled out to you like a damn child.”

His upper lip twitched below his beaked nose. “I told you not to go looking for him.”

“I chose to ignore your suggestion.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion, it was the command of a legally empowered representative of the Crown.”

“Your orders didn’t mean much to me when I was an agent, and a half decade out of the service hasn’t led me to rate them any higher.”

Crispin reached over the table and rapped me on the chin, almost casually but with enough force that I struggled to maintain balance on the chair. Damn, but the man was still quick.

I rubbed at a loose tooth with my tongue, nursing the pain and hoping it wouldn’t fall out. “Fuck you. I don’t owe you a thing.”

“I spent the last forty-five minutes convincing the captain to keep you out of the hands of Special Ops. If it wasn’t for me, they’d be taking you apart with a scalpel right now.” The sneer sat awkwardly on his face. Crispin was not by nature disposed to reveling in the misfortune of others. “You know how much those animals want you back under their care?”

Quite badly, I imagined. I had been working for Special Operations toward the end of my time as an agent, the unit tasked with fixing issues that fell outside the normal purview of law enforcement. Their retirement package generally consisted of a violent death and an unmarked grave, and avoiding that unhappy fate had taken a good bit more luck than a wise man ought to count on twice. I owed Crispin for averting a reunion, and even my well-honed sense of ingratitude wasn’t sufficient to deny that.

From inside his duster Crispin pulled out a document and sent it spinning across the table. “Here’s your statement. The illegal goods found in the alley are assumed to be Zhange Jue’s and will be destroyed according to official policy.” That was right; they must have found my satchel. I guess I owed Crispin for that too: ten ochres’ worth of breath will get you five years in a labor camp, three more than the average inmate survives. “Sign at the bottom,” he said, then leaned across the table and unlocked my cuffs.

I spent a moment rubbing circulation back into my wrists. “Good to see the case wrapped up, justice pursued, righteousness restored and all that.”

“I don’t like this any more than you do. If I had my way, we’d be tearing apart the Kiren’s house, and have half the force looking into your story. This…” He shook his head bitterly, and I saw the same young man I’d met ten years earlier, who fancied his service to the Crown was just that, service, and that what evil existed in the world could be defeated by the strong right arm of a virtuous man. “This isn’t justice.”

For all his intellect and physical prowess, at the end of the day Crispin wasn’t very good at his job. His fantasies of what it should be blinded him to what it was, and that had doomed him to the middle ranks even though his family was one of the oldest in Rigus and his service to the Crown noble and distinguished. Justice? I almost laughed. An agent doesn’t pursue justice, he maintains order.

Justice-by the Lost One, what can you say to that?

I didn’t have the energy to give him another civics lesson, and anyway this was a long-standing argument. Growing up surrounded by tapestries depicting his ancestors leading doomed charges against invincible odds had made him a sucker for words that didn’t mean anything. I signed my name at the bottom of the document with a flourish.

“The Kiren got his, and I leave justice to the Firstborn. At the moment I’m more concerned with what happens when the thing that killed him comes back.”

“If I were you, I’d hope it doesn’t-as of right now, you’re the only link. So long as it stays gone, no one gives a shit about you, not anymore. But if it starts popping up again, Special Ops will set you a spot in the basement, and there won’t be anything I can do about it.”

That was as pleasant a note as any to leave on. “Until that happy day comes,” I said, giving him a nod of farewell.

He didn’t return it, his eyes downcast, fixed without purpose on the center of the table.

I left Black House with all possible speed, hoping to avoid both the pull of memory and any former comrades intent on displaying dissatisfaction with my career path via physical assault. I was more successful with the second than the first, and by the time I hit the streets my mood had plunged into something approaching outright despair. I walked home wishing I still had my stash, and could take a quick dip into it.

When I got back to the Earl I drank a flagon of ale and slept for about a day and a half, waking only to give Adolphus a quick blow-by-blow over a plate of eggs. I kept vague on what exactly had done the Kiren-the less anyone knew, the better for everyone. He was suitably impressed.