Darren Shan: Hell's Horizon

“You sure? The fog’s still pretty strong in places. You might get mowed down.”

“I’ll take my chances.” I kissed her cheeks. “See you, Ellen.”

“Soon,” she said. “You don’t need to wait for special occasions to call. Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

We smiled, then parted. I watched the cab disappear into the fog, then went for a walk. Back home I collected the marble from the kitchen and took it to bed. I studied it for ages, running my fingers along the streaks of gold. I fell asleep with it in the palm of my left hand, but when I woke in the morning it was gone, and although I searched all over, I couldn’t find it anywhere. It seemed as if it had been lost to the shades of the night.

Tuesday morning. Back to work.

I cycled to Shankar’s for breakfast. One of the perks of working for The Cardinal — free meals at Shankar’s. I wasn’t a regular — most mornings I grabbed a bagel from Ali or a sandwich at work — but I liked to pop by a few times a week.

I parked out back. My bike was my only means of transport. I cycled everywhere, unless on a job with the Troops. I started using it when I got busted for drunk driving some years ago. Enjoyed it so much, I stuck with it even when I got my license back.

Shankar’s was a huge, open-plan, two-story structure (the upper floor was made out of glass) but barrenly decorated. Leonora Shankar was a famed minimalist.

I spotted a flock of Troops gathered by a table near the door and slotted in. Jerry and Mike were the only ones from my shift but I knew the rest of them. Most members of The Cardinal’s personal army got to know each other over the years. There weren’t that many of us, and we were all bound to the city, so we were a close-knit group.

“Back from vacation,” Jerry noted, welcoming me with a raise of his mug. That led to questions about where I’d been, and I spent a pleasant quarter of an hour describing my fishing trip.

“Wish I could get up there,” a sad-eyed guy called Oisin remarked. “I’ve been working weekends since New Year’s. Going up midweek ain’t the same.”

“Switch shifts,” somebody told him.

“No point. The wife works weekends too. If I took a weekend off without her, she’d think I was doing the dirty.”

“Women don’t understand fishing,” Mike agreed. “I went when I was younger. Every time I came back, my girl went through my stuff, looking for evidence. Got sick of it in the end, gave up the fishing. Should have given up her.”

We all muttered and spent a few silent seconds reflecting on the ways of women. My coffee and toast arrived and I tucked in. I always started the day on a light meal.

“Anything happen while I was away?” I asked.

“A couple of new boys started,” Jerry informed me. “Been showing them the ropes.”

“Tasso and Weld are at it again,” Mike added. Ford Tasso was The Cardinal’s right-hand man. Used to be commanding officer of the Troops. Frank Weld replaced him several years ago but Tasso continued to think of the Troops as “his men” and was constantly criticizing Frank’s handling of them. I had sympathy for Frank but I liked Tasso and had to admit that life had been more interesting when he was head honcho.

“What’s it this time?” I asked.

“Some broad was killed in the Skylight last Friday,” Jerry told me. “Wasn’t authorized. The Cardinal’s furious. He chewed out Tasso, and Tasso chewed out Frank. The two have been screaming at each other all weekend. Tasso’s saying nobody would have gotten past the Troops when he was in charge. Frank’s going on again about the security arrangements at the Skylight.”

Frank had been looking to upgrade security at the Skylight since he took over from Tasso. It was one of The Cardinal’s key establishments, where many of his staff and clients stayed when in town. But unlike Party Central — which was pretty much impregnable — it was poorly guarded. The Cardinal liked it that way — it made his guests feel more relaxed — but Frank, who took the flak whenever anything went wrong, hated the setup.

“Guess he’ll be bitching at us all week,” I sighed.

“We’ve already had a day of it,” Jerry said. “Yesterday will go down as one of the biggest pain-in-the-ass Mondays in history. You were lucky you missed it.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, checking his watch and drinking up, “but it’ll be even worse if we’re late today. Slightest excuse, he’ll be on our case. Let’s split.”

“But we’ve half an hour yet,” I protested.

“You think Frank will give a shit?” Mike replied. “I was ten minutes early yesterday and almost got my marching orders.”

“Great to be back,” I grumbled, finished my coffee and grabbed the last slice of toast. “OK if I stick my bike in the back of the van and come with you guys?”

Jerry’s got a soft spot for his van and normally vetoes such requests. But he took pity on me this once and helped me load it in, making sure I didn’t scratch the paint.

Frank spotted us entering and made a production of checking the clock in the downstairs locker room of Party Central. We were a good eighteen minutes ahead of schedule.

“Come in this time again,” he growled, “and it’ll be to pick up your personals.”

While Frank stormed out to berate latecomers, we got into uniform. Dark blue pants and jacket, light blue shirt (a similarly shaded sweater for cooler seasons). Green-blue beret. Black shin-length boots. No tie, thank God. I had three uniforms, which I kept spotlessly clean. Ford Tasso hadn’t paid much attention but Frank was big on presentation. Rightfully so. It was different in the old days, when the Troops were an illegal band of thugs. The Cardinal had grown in stature and we were a city-approved force now, with all the trappings of respectability. We even got the occasional tourist stopping by Party Central to check us out. We worked for a gangster, sure, but we were one of the public faces of his organization, and as such we had to present a smart, professional front.

Jerry studied the shine of his boots, shook his head and started working up a mouthful of spit. Mine were OK so I headed up a flight of stairs to one of the building’s many conference rooms, where my duties for the day would be posted.

The room was half-full of soldiers, some coming on watch like me, some going off, some on their break. I found my name on the bulletin board and scanned to the right. Front door till lunch, yard patrol in the afternoon. That meant a rifle. Damn. I hated any weapon that required more than a single hand to operate.

I signed for the Kalashnikov — a throwback to Tasso’s time — and a pretty young girl called Anra handed it over.

“Missed you yesterday,” she said.

“Vacation,” I explained.

“Anywhere exciting?”

“Upriver. Fishing.”

“You on for some overtime this week?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“What suits you?”

“Tonight and tomorrow. I’ll see after that.”

Overtime was never a problem in the Troops. I’d been putting in a lot of extra hours the last year or so. Nothing better to do with my time. Besides, keeping busy made it easier to stay off the bottle. Back when Ellen and I split, I hit it hard. Almost got drummed out of the Troops. Sunk about as low as you can get without going under, before Bill pulled me out of the slump.

I spent the early part of the day out front of Party Central with nine other Troops and a couple of red-suited doormen. We were the first line of defense. We looked pretty lifeless to the hordes of people passing in and out, as if we were only there for show, but we were on constant alert, observing all who entered, ready to open fire at the first sniff of a threat. We weren’t on the lookout for weapons — the X-ray machines would pinpoint those — but telltale facial expressions and tics. Our job was to spot people who didn’t belong.