Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Originally published by Angry Robot

Prologue

In a firelit study half a mile underground, Professor Werner Thomas Cahill sweated and reddened under a councilor’s beady stare.

“It’s a wonder,” Cahill said, “bigger than we ever expected.” His hands rested, palms down, on the massive cherry wood desk in front of him, and he licked his lips, searching for words to convey scale. Towering walls crowded around him and disappeared in the darkness above. He felt like a rodent in a viper pit.

The owner of the desk drummed long, slender fingers across it, and Cahill marveled at how clean it was. A councilor of his standing should have a lot more clutter.

Councilor Ruthers leaned forward. “Professor Cahill, you are aware of what this means?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I trust that you’ve been discreet?”

“You’re the first person I’ve told, sir.” Perspiration condensed on the polished wood under his hands.

“Then you know the complications that would arise if this were to surface.” The words came out like the first sigh of snow in the autumn air, unexpected and chilling. Cahill took the councilor’s meaning and shivered.

“Of course, sir.”

Ruthers paused, waving a hand in the air. “That isn’t all I’m talking about.” What frightened Cahill most was not that Ruthers would threaten his life, but that this was, apparently, least among their shared concerns. “This is your life’s work—your dream. It’s the same for an odd three dozen as well.”

“Actually, sir, it’s about twice that if you count—”

“I don’t.”

Cahill swallowed. Working with other people was hard enough. But conniving and backstabbing? This was why he tried to avoid collaborative efforts. And politics.

The chair beneath him whispered as he shifted on the velour upholstery. Councilor Ruthers smiled in what he must have thought was a reassuring manner.

“Werner, don’t worry about this. Your job is research—let me handle the politics. Agreed?”

Cahill nodded. That was all you could do when Councilor Ruthers asked if you agreed.

“Excellent. I want you to begin taking inventory. Prepare a preliminary report for Dr Hask, including an estimation of time and manpower. We’ll start next week.”

“Next week, sir?”

“Phase two.” Councilor Ruthers pulled an inch-thick, bound folder from under his desk and slid it to Cahill. It seemed out of place on the otherwise immaculate surface. Cahill took the folder, feeling slick leather under his thumbs. The cover bore one word.

Prometheus.

Chapter 1 The Inspector and the Laundress

The smugglers fled to the surface. Sooner or later, they always did. An underground city only offered so many places to run.

Liesl Malone’s feet pounded a rapid tattoo on the cobblestones, an up-tempo echo of the two sets of footsteps half a block ahead. The smugglers had been faster at the start of the chase, but now they were tiring. And, from the sounds of their clipped grunts and curses, panicking.

Malone’s long breaths filled her with the odors of soot, sweat, and desperation. She hadn’t wanted to move before next month’s clandestine cordite shipment, but the smugglers had recognized her. Someone had tipped them off. If they got away, the contacts she’d spent months grooming wouldn’t just be useless, they’d be dead.

The chase had started in the subterranean labyrinths of the city’s factory districts, where torch smoke choked the tunnels and obscured the murals and carvings left by thief gangs, rowdy youths, and immigrant factions. The factory districts bred criminals the same way sewers bred rats, and she’d spotted the smugglers in a knot around a jewelry fence’s stall. She could just see the whites of their eyes in the flickering torchlight as they squeezed between laborers from the nearby rubber mill. But when a murmur rippled through the crowd about the ghost-pale woman in the black overcoat, the smugglers had noticed her and bolted.

Unfortunately for these two, Malone’s feet were just as sure in the tumbling, jagged passages as theirs were, and her sharp elbows parted crowds as quickly as their girth. The smugglers had drawn their weapons, but she knew they wouldn’t dare fire. Most of the passages in the factory districts were as tight as they were twisted, leaving little open ground for a clear shot. Only the most desperate of fugitives would open fire in the melting pot of gangs and ruffians there. Even the lowest newcomers made allies, and everyone had a long memory.

Above the crowded tunnels and warrens of the underground city, the moonlight and shadows must have promised concealment, and the midnight chill must have tasted like escape. For whatever reason, a fugitive on the last leg of flight almost always made for the surface the way a wounded rabbit crawls to the bushes to die.

And now Malone pursued them through the stone forest of verandas, entrances great and small to the city below. These crumbling shacks listed toward one another, throwing sweeps of ancient brick and concrete into the street. The ones that still stood in this part of the city were especially small, barely big enough for three or four people to stand in. She would not have trusted the rusting chain-winch lifts and staircases within most of them for a seat on Recoletta’s ruling council.

Just ahead, one of the smugglers stumbled and nearly tripped on the cracked cobblestones. Deep trenches from years of carriage and wagon travel gouged the streets in this neighborhood. The air stank with factory smoke, which billowed into the night sky from outlets above the mills and foundries. Malone hoped that a stray wind wouldn’t send the chemical-blackened fumes their way to add to the darkness.

The first smuggler dashed behind a sawtoothed brick wall. His redheaded partner wasn’t as nimble. He smashed into the opposite structure, his pistol clattering into a nest of rubble, before he pivoted and dashed away. She rounded the corner just in time to see him speed ahead. Malone tracked the smugglers’ flickering movements in the moonlight as they wove between half-standing walls.

Reaching a jumble of tumbledown construction that looked more like a ruin than a city block, the smugglers predictably split up. Malone followed the man who had dropped his gun as he peeled off to the right and into a rubble-strewn alley. The smuggler glanced over his shoulder long enough to see her and bent to pull something out of his boot as he loped ahead. She ducked into a scarred crevice between two walls before he could turn again.

She scaled the weathered sandstone building in front of her, digging her hands and boots into jagged pockmarks. She crouched atop it and watched the smuggler five feet below back further into the alley, his eyes scanning for the black-clad inspector. Her polished black boots made nary a sound as she squatted and side-stepped just over the smuggler’s head. He continued to squint into the alley, but when a bank of clouds slid away from the moon, Malone’s shadow appeared at his feet, and he stiffened.

As the smuggler whirled, derringer raised, Malone kicked a foot out and sent a spray of loose sandstone and grit into his face. He clawed at his eyes and fired high, and Malone slid from the veranda in a rain of debris to land behind him. He turned, blinking frantically as her foot sailed toward his outstretched arm and sent his gun spinning to the ground. He grasped at his hip with a shaking hand, drew a knife, and rushed at her.

She retreated to the end of the alley and into the cross-street behind it, hoping that he would notice her revolver and reconsider. He hurled the knife instead. As Malone dodged left, the knife wheeled past her elbow and a bullet whistled by her nose. She saw the other smuggler out of the corner of her eye and heard a click as he thumbed back the hammer on his revolver. A quick release of sweat cooled her scalp. Malone dove back into the alley, knocking the redhead off his feet. She drove her elbow into his stomach and rolled past him, kneeling between him and his fallen derringer as he gasped for air. She pocketed it while he struggled to his feet.

“Back out of the alley. Hands behind your head,” she said, making sure he saw the grinning “O” of her revolver’s muzzle.

He coughed, rising slowly. “He’ll shoot me.”

“So will I.” Malone pointed her gun at his right kneecap.

The smuggler’s face went white. “You can’t do that!”

“I never miss at this distance.”

“But I’m unarmed!”

Malone flicked her revolver at him. “Hands up. Slowly.” He took shuffling steps backwards, his lips working wordlessly and his face flushing in alternating shades of rage and panic. “You two must not be close,” she said.

The smuggler glanced up from his feet. “Anjoli thinks with his gun, that’s all.”

“He’s still armed. What’s that say about you?”

He glared at her. “Says I got other skills.”

“Like knife throwing?”

The smuggler’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched, but it was the sudden flicker in his eyes that Malone was watching for. She spun, rolling to the side as a muzzle flashed at the other end of the alley. The redheaded smuggler howled behind her. Malone squeezed her trigger twice, and the figure standing thirty yards away collapsed. She turned back to her recent acquaintance on the ground, hunched over his thigh.

“I’m bleeding,” he said, looking up at her.

She tossed him a pair of handcuffs. “Use these.”

The man winced, taking a sharp breath through his teeth. “What are those supposed to do?”

“Keep me from using this,” Malone said, wagging her gun. She turned back into the alley, pointing her revolver into the dimness. At the other end, Anjoli slumped against a bank of fallen masonry, pawing for his fallen pistol with a mangled hand. Blood poured from two stumps on his right hand and onto the gun’s slickened grip. More pooled under his leg, painting the jagged paving stones a shiny black in the moonlight. Anjoli looked up at Malone with dull eyes and slid the blood-wet gun to her feet.

A shadow fell across the alley from the crooked avenue beyond Anjoli. “That was a problem built for two, Inspector Malone.”

She holstered her revolver and patted a derringer snuggled against her thigh. “I’ve got my own pair.”

Inspector Richards stepped over the rubble, circling around to Anjoli. He snapped a white handkerchief out of his pocket and grasped the smuggler’s hand in it, examining the stumps. Anjoli groaned, and Richards left the bloodied rag in his hand. “Pinch it here and hold tight.” Richards straightened and turned back to Malone. “Surgical shot, Malone. Dare I ask the what-ifs?”

“When a contract is eight months old, one less smuggler is the least of our worries. If prisoner transport doesn’t show up soon, though…”

Richards glanced over his shoulder. “The welcome wagon’s a few blocks back. The driver doesn’t know what to do on the surface roads here, if you can call them that, and never mind the subterranean routes. Plenty of time to get these guys patched up and taken to the station.”

Malone buttoned her long black overcoat against the night air. “You got here fast.”

“You’re easy to find,” Richards said. “I just follow the gunfire. Or the curses. You have an effect on people.” Anjoli moaned again.

Malone leaned against the crumbling wall behind her. “Is that why you always show up after I’ve passed around the cuffs?”

Richards smiled, a glint of white in the moonlight. “Oh, leave it. I know you wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, Recolettans need to know who keeps their city clean.”

She shrugged, looking back down the alley. The hunkered shadow at the other end raised his arms, showing her a pair of glimmering handcuffs.

Richards followed her gaze. “Is that the better half?” Malone nodded. “How’d you know?” he asked.

It was Malone’s turn to grin. “He told me.” The only reason that Anjoli would have come back for his partner was if he knew about their networks and safehouses. Anjoli would never be safe with his partner in the hands of the Municipal Police, which meant that the other man either had to escape with him or die. The redhead’s fear of his partner told Malone that he knew this, too.

A wooden carriage pulled up outside the alley with a clopping of hooves and the groan of wheels. Heavy bars crossed the narrow windows along the sides of the carriage, and the team inside traded muffled orders as they prepared to bind the smugglers’ wounds and load them up. “Since you’ve got it from here, I’ll walk back to the station,” Malone said. “I can finish my report in a few hours.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Richards turned back down the alley as four uniformed officers jogged from the carriage. “The chief has other plans for you,” he said, his voice lowered. She followed, silent. “Break-in at 421 East Eton. One casualty.” Malone met Richards’s gaze, not bothering to ask why her, and why now, after an all-night manhunt.

“Just outside the Vineyard,” he said. “Obviously, the chief wants you to take a look at this as quickly and quietly as possible. It could be nothing.” The edge in his voice suggested this was too much to hope for. Little crime occurred near the Vineyard, and for a good reason. It was home to the whitenails, the most powerful men and women in the city, and the only thing more formidable than their wealth was their mercenary sense of justice. Any criminal in that neighborhood would only hope for the Municipals to catch him first.

To Malone, the Vineyard was even worse than the factory districts. If something had gone wrong beneath those pristine marble verandas, it would in no way be a simple matter.

As if reading her thoughts, Richards looked down at the patterns his boots had scraped into the grit. “There’s something else,” he said. “The victim is named Cahill. He’s a historian. Was a historian.”

Malone stalked out of the alley, her coat swishing against her black slacks and knee-high boots. Within a quarter of an hour, she had left the factory districts for the straight, broad surface avenues that most Recolettans knew. As if aging in reverse, the crumbling ruins gave way to towering structures marking various residences and businesses, whole and austere and gleaming blue in the moonlight. It was a wonder they had been so carefully crafted, particularly when city-dwellers spent most of their time underground. Pressed against one another in the fashion of a crowded metropolis, the monuments took on the character of gruff, mustachioed old men, huddled together in their dress coats and frowning upon passersby.

Malone found a hansom cab at the corner and showed her inspector’s seal to the driver, giving him an address just beyond her destination. If discretion was imperative, it wouldn’t do to travel too close to the Vineyard in the wee hours with a chatty cabbie watching.

As the carriage clattered from the less impressive zones toward the Vineyard, the old men lining the cobbled streets evolved, growing in stature and spreading their arms over tiled avenues. Whether they opened their arms to welcome or to snatch depended entirely upon one’s relationship to them.

Recoletta, like all modern cities, had been constructed around the two values that society prized most: security and privacy. Even hundreds of years after the Catastrophe, people still lived underground. Crude shelters had developed into shining palaces and rudimentary tunnels into yawning halls lit by fire and mirrors. Ornate verandas declared the locations and the prestige of their owners in the flashiest manner affordable. Even the larger structures, some of which could easily house several families, never functioned as actual living or workspaces. The real business went on below, hidden from common scrutiny.

This observation became truer as one traveled from stone to marble.

The hansom came to a halt, and Malone walked half a dozen blocks further to a neighborhood seemingly hewn from fine, veined stone. She found herself alone in the surface streets, grateful that the neighbors were too wealthy to be out at this hour. Malone stopped in front of a tall, narrow building of jet-black with a single elevator cage inside. Whereas the neighboring edifices were polished to a sheen that flashed in the moonlight, the one in front of Malone was worn rough and mottled with lichen. Three steps led to a rusty black gate. It was bowed outward, she noticed, and shards of glass and metal trickled from the upper steps to the perfectly aligned cobblestones below.

Boots stomped in the street behind her with dull, crunchy thumps. She turned to the older man trudging toward her. He also wore Municipal black, but his coat was frayed at the edges and faded at his elbows and shoulders. Inspector Carlyle glowered up at her from beneath thick eyebrows.

“I was wondering when our ghost inspector would appear,” he said through sagging cheeks.

“Richards sent you,” Malone said. She wasn’t surprised that Richards had neglected to mention this.

“Over an hour ago. Someone had to keep an eye on things while you were running around.” He pushed a lantern into her hands.

Malone caught a whiff of whiskey sourness on his breath. “Smells like you had company.” Stepping over the debris, she lit the lantern and called the elevator to the main residence. Carlyle followed close behind. They squeezed into the elevator cage together, and his breath filled the space for the eleven seconds of their descent.

The elevator settled into the bottom of the shaft, presenting them with a wooden door still hanging ajar. Malone took a grateful breath of fresh air. Her pulse slowed ever so slightly as she stepped into the darkened entryway. Dust motes swirled in front of her lantern, and a faint illumination flickered further down the hall.

“You know, this would be a lot easier if you’d flip the gaslights on,” Carlyle said.

Malone kept her gaze trained down the hall. “Were they on when you showed up?”

He grumbled something indistinct.

Malone followed the winking light and a wine-colored carpet to a study, a musty affair of bookshelves and worn leather.

It was almost a relief to see the crime confined to one small room. Four books were massed near the door of the study in an assortment of positions, fanned pages folded beneath the weight of their covers. A lone candle resting on a desk in the far corner lit a crumpled corpse slumped next to one shelf and the pile of fallen books at its feet.

Carlyle stood in the doorway while Malone crossed the study.

The shivering light animated the broken body as if it were still struggling to live, and the man’s hand, still warm and limp, also suggested a tenuous grasp on life. Bending over the dead man, Malone could just make out the shadow of a bruise at the base of his skull.

“Messy old bastard,” Carlyle said. “I thought these fancy folk were supposed to be well kept.”

“Does he look like a whitenail to you?”

“Not much I can see without the damn lights.”

The deceased was fully dressed in stained and rumpled clothes that he must have worn for several days, unusual for a member of high society, though not for an eccentric workaholic.

The study yielded further evidence that the victim had been less of the former and more of the latter. The patterned wool rugs, though obviously expensive, were threadbare in places and compounded with dirt and spills that had never been cleaned. Some of the volumes lining the walls appeared to be falling apart, and a coating of dust blanketed everything but the books.

Carlyle sneezed. “This guy ever heard of a broom?”

“Looks like he was busy.”

“Doing what?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

Malone hovered over the lit candle. By the substantial pool of warm wax at the base, she guessed it had burned all night. The lid had been removed from the inkpot, and the wet and balding quill lay discarded on the desk, which was otherwise clear. There was every appearance of serious business having taken place throughout the night, but no evidence of the finished product.

She pushed past Carlyle, ignoring his sigh when she finally flipped on the gaslights, and poked around the rest of the house. She might as well have searched in the dark for all the good it did her. A thorough survey of the rest of the house uncovered no other clues: no upturned furniture, no ransacked closets, and there was money and a few valuables left in plain sight.

Malone returned to the study and knelt by the victim. She pulled from his pocket a wallet that, like everything else he owned, appeared well used and ill cared for.

The doorjamb creaked as Carlyle leaned against it. “Any money left in there, Inspector?”

She found his credentials on coffee-stained cardstock that felt soft with age. Werner Thomas Cahill, seventy years old, Doctorate of History. As rare as they were, Malone had never met a historian, but with his disheveled attire and unkempt gray hair, Cahill looked much as she would have expected.

“Any connections?”

“Directorate of Preservation,” Malone said, reading from Cahill’s papers.

“Obviously. Who else can hire historians?”

“The Quadrivium.” Malone held up an ID card from Recoletta’s premier university.

Carlyle threw his hands up and turned halfway into the hall as if demonstrating his exasperation to an imaginary audience. “This guy was a couple of blocks from the richest quarter in the city, he worked at two of the top institutions, and yet he lived like a tradesman.”

Malone’s eyes flicked up to the shelves. “Not everyone likes pretty manners and parties.”

Carlyle shivered and tried to cover it by shoving his hands violently into his pockets. “Rich weirdos. You tell me what a history-reading geezer does like. More importantly, tell me when you’re done.” He marched back into the hall, and moments later couch springs sighed in the parlor.

For all of the luxuries Cahill lacked, he’d owned more than a few things that even the Vineyard dwellers would never have, and they all sat on his bookshelf. As she skimmed the spines of the books lining the room, her heart jumped. She raised her lantern and squinted at the shelves. Nestled among the ancient and modern fiction classics were a handful of titles concerned with history, or at least theories about it. Most historical records had been lost or destroyed in the period immediately following the Catastrophe. The Council restricted the serious study of antebellum history, and any archives and accounts were guarded within the vaults of the Directorate of Preservation.

Seeing history books on display sent Malone’s gut roiling. Cahill must have been important to have permission to keep history books at his home. Surely he had permission? Even as she wanted to hide the volumes, to push them deeper into the shelf, she caught her hand creeping toward them, her fingers itching. Perhaps, she thought, they might reveal something about Dr Cahill’s mysterious work. She considered this even as she listened for Carlyle’s return.

Malone stopped herself. Had these books been relevant to the crime, the assassin would have taken them, too. And if they weren’t relevant, then there was no professional reason for her to open them. Fingers tingling in midair, she dropped her hand and stepped back from the shelf. Even a scholar such as Dr Cahill would not keep history books of real danger in his home, and if he did, well, such matters were not among the concerns of the Municipal Police.

She let her gaze wander to the other books on the shelves. Beside and beneath their titles were familiar, reassuring words: Novel. The Collected Poetry of…Essays and Anecdotes. Short Stories. These were the kinds of books that appeared in schoolhouses, public libraries, and the salons of the cultured. Censorship didn’t feel as bad when you kept the sweetness and light. History and the darker vignettes, on the other hand, remained under the lock and key of trusted authority, like some virulent epidemic. Above all, such powers feared releasing into the air whatever secrets had nearly destroyed the world so many centuries ago.

Malone turned her back to the bookshelves. For all her searching, Cahill’s desk was still empty, and she had no way yet of knowing what had filled it a few hours before. Carlyle snored in the next room. It was nearly seven when she blew out the candle and returned to the parlor.

She coughed, and Carlyle jerked awake.

“What now?” he said.

“I go back to the station.”

“And me?”

“You wait here for the morgue cart.” Malone headed back to the elevator.

Sunlight barely reached the elevator shaft from the veranda’s tall windows above. As Malone stepped into the cage, she noticed a faint glimmer between her feet. She reached between the bars of the bottom grating and dug into a crumbling line of mortar in the stone flooring, retrieving a layer of grime and a small key just before the elevator began its ascent. As Malone turned the key between her fingers, her mind spun in quick, concentric circles.

Upon reaching the surface, she tested the key on the gate and found a match. Malone noticed for the second time that the inside of the building was clean, with all of the broken glass on the steps and the avenue just outside. She tucked the key into her pocket, reached her conclusion, and made her way to the station downtown.

Halfway across the city, in more modest quarters, warm, astringent water licked at Jane Lin’s elbows as she searched the washbasin. One black pearl button the size of her thumbnail; that was all she needed to save her job. Work with the whitenails would dry up if word got out that she was a butterfingers, or, worse, a thief.

A wool frock coat hung against the opposite wall, its empty buttonhole glaring back at her. She had steamed it to crisp perfection and spot-cleaned it with a toothbrush, yet this somehow made the button’s absence even more conspicuous. Now, as she picked through the linen garments in the basin with exaggerated delicacy, trying to find a small, dark button amidst the soapsuds felt like trying to find a thimble on a crowded railcar. Assuming it was there at all.

A knock at the door brought her to her feet with a swift, startled jump. Wiping her hands on the front of her skirt like a kitchen thief, she unlatched the door for a dour, balding man whose expression suggested that he had just caught a whiff of something awful.

“Mr Fredrick Anders?” he said, his eyes fixed on some point over her head.

“Jane Lin, actually,” she said, suddenly conscious of her damp, wrinkled skirt and the drooping bun into which she had tied her dark hair. She straightened, shifting to block his view of the coat hanging against the far wall. “Mr Anders lives one over. Number 2C.”

The impeccably dressed man twitched, appearing unaccustomed to anything like a rebuff. “Thank you,” he managed. Jane shut the door and turned back to the washbasin in the middle of the floor, where it sat ringed by puddles and suds. She began twirling the clothes inside with a pronged wooden dolly, finally accepting that the priceless button, wherever it might be, wasn’t in the basin.

About ninety seconds later came another knock, this one rapid and irregular. Before she could start toward the door, a tall, wiry man bounded in without preamble.

“Jane, what on earth are you doing? Haven’t you heard?” he said, breathless. “There’s been a murder!”

The way he said it, as if announcing a grotesque exhibit at a street fair, surprised her more than what he said. “A what?” The dolly’s wooden handle slipped from her fingers. “When, Freddie? And where?”

“Only last night,” he said, a little calmer, “just outside of the Vineyard.” His eyes twinkled as he waited for her reaction.

“That’s impossible. How…”

“No one knows yet, but trust me, you’ll be the first to know when I get word.”

Jane mopped a few stray locks away from her forehead. Leaning against the washbasin, the dolly suddenly looked sharp and sinister. “Do you know who died?”

“The Municipals aren’t saying much, but it looks like some shriveled government scholar was choked with his own mothballs.”

“That’s terrible, Freddie.” She frowned, pausing for decency before the necessary follow up. “Did you get the assignment?”

His buoyant expression fell, and he ruffled his sandy-brown hair with one hand. “Blocked again by Chiang, the editor with a vengeance.” He balled a wad of paper from his pocket and flicked it through an imaginary target and into the fireplace behind Jane. “Or maybe just out-bribed by Burgevich. But I will be covering the grand society ball next week! Take a look at this pair of shoe-shiners.” His green eyes sparkled again as he brandished two sheets of vellum adorned with flowing calligraphy.

“Sounds like one of your editors likes you.” Jane rubbed the smooth material between thumb and forefinger. “Hardly seems fair that those go to you, though. I’m in that part of town every day of the week.” Though short of a miracle, that would soon change.

Fredrick beamed again as Jane grabbed the dolly and returned to her wash. “One of the many perks of career journalism. That’s actually what I came by to tell you.” He rolled the sheets and tucked them back into his coat. “That, and to invite you along, of course.”

Jane stopped mid-press, her fingers tight around the handle. “That’s very kind,” she said.

Fredrick laughed. “You know me, I’m not doing it to be kind. I can’t suffer through all those speeches on my own.” He watched her slow, methodical strokes in the basin. “Don’t tell me you already have plans.”

She stared into the filmy water. “Of course not.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll clean up fine in whatever you put together.”

Jane straightened her back and rested a hand on her hip. “Freddie, I fix clothes for a living. That’s the least of my worries.”

“Then whatever the hell is it?” Freddie had circled around her and now stood just a few feet from the damaged frock coat.

Jane’s eyes flicked from the coat to Freddie. “No offense, but you. My clients will be there. And I’ll be there with you, a reporter. I don’t want to give any of them the wrong idea.” It was true, and it was easier to explain than the missing pearl. The last thing she wanted right now was to add Fredrick’s hysteria to her own worries.

Fredrick rocked forward and threw his head back. “Oh, Jane, you and your precious reputation.”

“And my precious commissions.”

Fredrick held up his hands, but his voice carried the tone of an argument already won. “Look, no snooping at the party. Just straight reporting. Besides, most of your clients don’t even know what you look like. Unless all the Vineyard housemaids are there, your good name and your good jobs will be fine.”

Jane looked down at the linens, unwilling to refute him. “It would be nice to visit the Vineyard without my laundry cart.”

“Not to mention without looking like a servant.”

“I’m not a servant,” she said in a quick monotone. Not yet, anyway. “But I’d like to see whitenails at one of their fancy parties, with all their coattails and ball gowns and gentility.” Washing fine clothes for Recoletta’s upper crust engendered the desire to see people actually wear them.

“They’re not half so endearing as you seem to think,” he said, “and they’re twice as dangerous.”

“I’m sure they’re dangerous to someone who makes a living off their secrets.” Her eyebrows flicked upward as she gave him a skeptical grin. “But I’m a little more discreet. Not to mention charming. What’s the occasion, anyway?”

“A delegation from South Haven is coming by train next week, no doubt to arm-wrestle over farming communes. Naturally, no expenses will be spared.” He spread his hands in the air, framing an imaginary canvas. “Brummell Hall, in the heart of the Vineyard, with a sumptuous spread of prime rib, shrimp the length of my finger, pastries light as clouds, and velvet-smooth wines.” His eyes took on a wistful glaze.

“This is a celebration in their honor?”

“On the surface, yes. Making an impression, that’s what these affairs are really about. The Vineyard is known for its sour grapes.”

A kettle filled with a starch mixture whistled from the stove, and Jane went to remove it. “Well, you haven’t handed back your invitation. I’m sure it’ll be fun, even for a jaded old grouch like you.” Though Fredrick was barely in his mid-thirties, he was still a full decade older than Jane and ripe for teasing.

“Let’s get one stiff cocktail in you and we’ll see who’s laughing. But not to worry, I couldn’t ruin this for you if I tried.” Jane winced inwardly, reflecting that Freddie wouldn’t have to try at all if the missing pearl button led to a falling out with her clients.

He glanced at his wristwatch. “I really should get to the office. The paper has to pay me for some kind of work, after all. Ta, Jane.” With an exaggerated bow, he backed out of the door.

Alone again, Jane surveyed her den, lined with piles of clothes. With the quiet years she had worked to build a hopeful life here, it left a sluggish ball of dread in her stomach to imagine that it could all disappear after one day’s mistake. She was in the habit of glancing through her commissions upon receipt, but she’d been in a hurry when Director Fitzhugh’s housekeeper had shoved the bundle into her arms. Now it was impossible to say, and impossible to prove, whether the button had disappeared in her care or before. And it was equally pointless to wonder whether this was an unfortunate accident, an act of sabotage by a housekeeper who’d always stared at Jane’s scuffed shoes a little too pointedly, or a convenient mishap arranged by an employer looking for an excuse to hire someone else. One heard of such incidents from time to time.

As plain as it was, Jane’s apartment was a private haven. She had a bedroom to herself, a small workroom for her tailoring, and space enough to entertain her friends. She knew every nook and cranny and had swept every corner thrice, and the button wasn’t here. The question was, should she confess the problem to Mr Fitzhugh and hope for mercy or try to find a replacement at the market? Not real pearl, certainly, but a near enough approximation?

The question dissolved when Jane recalled a childhood in halls of peeling paint and mildew and nights in crowded, flu-ridden bunks, when she remembered that she lived not half a mile away from the swarming slums and noxious air of the factory districts. She set off for the market. She would save sympathy for a last resort.

Chapter 2 The Subtle Art of Eavesdropping

As the sun burned off the early morning chill, Inspector Malone approached the gray marble pavilion of Callum Station, the headquarters of the Municipal Police. Officially named for a famous and respected police chief over three centuries ago, the station was more colloquially known as Calumny Station to anyone who didn’t work in it. With their head-to-toe black garb and their reputation for prying, the Municipals caused weeks of gossip for anyone unfortunate enough to receive a visit. Sniffing out smuggling operations and quelling factory district unrest was a thankless job, indeed.

However, this had the side effect of making Malone’s final approach agreeably solitary. If they could help it, most pedestrians would walk an extra block rather than pass next to the station. Set in the outer ring of downtown and its respectably cheerful verandas distinguishing high-end shops, offices, and town houses, Callum Station loomed like a pallbearer at a card party. The entire structure radiated gloomy impassivity, from the smooth columns to the broad steps and the steady arches of the roof. The building’s one unique feature perched above the drab, gray structure: a beacon inside a narrow tower, lit at all times to symbolize the perpetual vigilance of the Municipal Police.

With one sleepless night behind her and a full day ahead, Malone reflected that this was more apt than ever.

She descended a broad stairway to a spacious underground rotunda lit by the clean, white light of radiance stones that seemed unnecessarily bright this morning. The chemically treated crystals glowed like white-hot fireflies and could, after a few hours exposed to the sun, light a room for days or weeks on end. They preserved some of the natural wavelengths of sunlight, allowing for the lush gardens in the wealthier areas of town. Here, however, they threatened to give Malone a headache.

Several wide corridors sprouted from the rotunda. Malone marched through the largest of these, marked by a pair of grim lion statues and two equally stone-faced guards gripping bayonets.

She followed a pair of burning trenches set high in the passage’s walls. Chemists had invented various powders, pastes and oils to enhance the luminosity of flame, extend its life, and even alter its color, and these compounds roiled in almost every fire in the city. With sophisticated mirrors and lenses crafted from mineral and glass composites, no corner of the underground had to remain dark.

Deputy chiefs’ offices, conference rooms, and smaller corridors leading deeper into the station lined the hall. Next to one of these stood a young man wearing Municipal black. He was handsome, in an eager, boyish way, with jet hair, a caramel-brown complexion, and a disarming smile. Malone knew the other hundred-odd inspectors by name, and she was acquainted with most of the support staff, but not with this man. Nevertheless, his eyebrows rose in recognition as she approached.

“Inspector Malone! Good morning. You must’ve just come from Cahill’s domicile.”

She nodded.

“Excellent. The sweeps who reported the incident are already here. Didn’t want to talk to them until you arrived, naturally. I’m sure we’ll want to compare notes.” The young man tapped his forehead. “Of course. You must be wondering what I’m on about. Chief’s assigned me to work with you on the contract.”

Malone’s muscles tightened as he fumbled in his coat pockets, producing a shiny, newly minted inspector’s seal and handwritten orders marked with Chief Johanssen’s stamp. “Richards told us he’d sent you, said you should be back within an hour. Or two.” For what seemed to be the first time since his rapid introduction, the young man stopped talking long enough to breathe, his eyes wide with expectation.

Malone looked at the orders, half expecting to see him assigned to morgue duty for the day. The two things Malone knew about trainees and junior inspectors were that they rendezvoused on the bottom level of the station and that they never worked with her. Yet it was her name, scratched in blotted black ink, staring back at her. “And you are?”

“Me? I—Oh! How careless. Inspector Rafe Sundar, ma’am.” He gave a short chuckle of embarrassment, his graceful features momentarily absurd.

Malone studied him. Extending an arm, she squeezed her lips into a smile. “Pleasure.”

A broad grin warmed his face, and he pumped her hand rapidly. His left hand gently pressed her arm into the handshake. Malone preferred the crisp efficiency of a brief, dry squeeze, but Sundar had her in an extended vice grip of friendliness. “The honor is entirely mine, Inspector,” he said. “I have to say, I’m thrilled to be working with you. You have quite the reputation around here.”

“Yet I know nothing about you. Tell me about your background, Inspector.” She eyed him as she pronounced the last word, sounding it out. He blushed.

“I completed my training the week before last with a batch of five other recruits. Top marks in procedure and investigation.” He hesitated, shifting on his feet.

“And?”

“Studies in murder and assault cases. Naturally.”

“Before that.”

Sundar massaged a spot on the floor with his toe. “My background is, you could say, a bit unorthodox. I’m not sure it’s particularly interesting, Inspector.”

“I’m not asking for conversation’s sake.”

“Ah. Well, in that case, I came from a four-year career in theatre.”

Malone’s eyebrows shot up and her lips tightened. “Why the career change?”

Sundar stopped fidgeting. “Too much memorization. I’d gotten into it for the improv.”

“I see.” She paused, considering him. “Our first order of business is to question the sweeps. Richards will have detained them in the east wing.” She trailed off, tapping a black-gloved finger to her chin as she began to turn.

“Yes, the holding lobby on level four. Follow me, please.” He nodded and led the way down the narrow hall. She scowled at his back but, with a sigh, allowed him to lead her through the station she knew so well.

The smaller corridor’s plain, gray walls tightened around them. The hall curved steadily, concentric with the rotunda, a line of eye-level gas lamps visible for a dozen yards at a time. Passing offices and branching hallways, Sundar began briefing Malone.

“I monitored them until I came to meet you, and I don’t think they’re involved. They were working on the same schedule as usual—their supervisor came by, and I checked that with him, of course.” The inspectors took a left and descended a short flight of stairs. “They’ve been pretty quiet, but not too quiet, if you know what I mean. Anybody left to their own thoughts in one of those holding rooms would be.” He glanced at her, hoping for agreement. “They’ve done a number on the tea and biscuits we left them, and I haven’t caught any fidgeting or whispering. Really, I think they just happened to be at the right place at the right time. For us, I mean.” The inspectors entered a small, cluttered room with a downward-facing window built into the far wall. “They didn’t show the usual signs of trying to hide something, Inspector.”

Malone gave Sundar an appraising glance and glided over to the window. It was common for sweeps and other groundskeepers to stumble upon crime scenes. Wandering all corners of Recoletta at any given hour, day, and especially night, the groundskeepers formed a veritable army of maintenance men and women who emerged from their homes in the poorer districts in shifts, cleaning public spaces, relighting torches, and charging and replacing radiance stones as needed.

Unfortunately, with the exception of whitenails, groundskeepers were the most difficult to interview. That they reported such a high percentage of crimes often cast them in suspicion. That they received the lowest wages in the city only deepened public distrust. The groundskeepers heartily returned these sentiments, but criminal penalties against failing to report a crime, not to mention the knowledge that such an omission would only worsen their precarious reputation, compelled them to grudgingly come forward.

Two grimy men with circles under their eyes and haggard expressions sat twitching their beards in a bare, colorless chamber. The combination of artful lighting and a one-way mirror concealed the observing window, and Malone watched as the sweeps sipped from mugs of lukewarm tea and chatted in monosyllables, their eyes hooded by the lights and their exhaustion.

She folded her arms and looked at Sundar’s reflection in the glass. “Show me your top marks in investigation.”

“Of course.” He ducked out of the observation room and reappeared in the door of the holding room a few moments later. Malone started; though she had seen that same uniform, the same neat slick of hair, and the same rounded eyes, less than a minute earlier in the observation room, the man beneath them seemed taller, older, and quietly assertive.

The groundskeepers looked up at Sundar, pulling the mugs between their propped elbows. He strode to the table where they sat, shook their hands, and addressed them with polite warmth. He seemed transformed from the nervous and excitable young man in the hall, a confident smile underlining his every word.

“Gentlemen, thank you for your time,” Sundar said. The groundskeepers watched him silently. “You must know that we appreciate your assistance. Your reports contribute greatly to the peace and stability of Recoletta.”

One of the groundskeepers sniffed.

“Of course, I also know that you don’t have any choice but to be here. If you weren’t, some goon with a bad attitude and a blackjack would be at your door, giving you hell and halitosis. You’d end up here anyway, and probably with an extended stay at the Barracks,” Sundar said, referring to the headquarters of the City Guard and its infamous prison on the western end of town.

One of the sweeps plunked his mug onto the table, crossing his arms. “You got questions or what?”

Sundar nodded at the mug. “Yeah. How’s the tea?”

“Horse scat,” said the same man, and the other laughed. Sundar smiled.

“You’re not kidding. They gag us with that stuff every morning. Part of the daily briefing.” The sweeps didn’t laugh, but concessionary grins slid across their faces, and Malone saw their postures relax as they slumped more comfortably in the stiff chairs. “Between you and me, though,” Sundar said, settling into a seat across from them, “I know you’ve got nothing to do with this. Someone was going to stumble across the veranda sooner or later, and it just happened to be you two. So, why don’t you just tell me what you saw?” Slipping into the interrogation, Sundar asked them about their routine and their findings that morning, and they answered amiably, gulping their tea and thumping the table as they talked.

After half an hour, Sundar shook their hands again and walked them to the door. “That addresses all of our questions, but we’ll contact you if anything else comes up. I’ll have someone see you out.”

Sundar and the two sweeps disappeared from the holding lobby and, two minutes later, he returned to the observation room. For all of the acting talent he’d shown in the chamber below, he hid his triumph poorly.

“Passing grade,” Malone said, her eyes still lingering on the room below. “Barely. You forgot something.”

“What’s that?”

“You interrogated them together.”

Sundar nodded once. “I know we usually separate witnesses upon arrival, but, respectfully, I thought I could get more information from them this way.” Malone tilted her head, and Sundar continued. “If they wanted to make up a story, they had plenty of time to rehearse it on their way to the station. A little goodwill can go a long way, and I’d rather have them lie freely to me together than clamp shut in separate lobbies.”

Malone felt her own jaw clamp tight. “As long as you can tell the difference.”

“Respectfully, ma’am, I think I can.”

She pulled a silver pocket watch from her coat. “Meet me in Chief Johanssen’s office in five minutes. I’ll cover what I found at the scene.”

She reviewed Sundar’s notes from his initial observation. To her disappointment, they were neat and thorough. If she was going to get a reprieve from babysitting, she’d have to talk to Chief Johanssen directly.

Malone returned to the main hallway and followed the fiery trenches to its end. A shallow alcove framed a wide, solid door. Malone pushed it open to reveal a familiar scene: Farrah, the chief’s buxom assistant, drowsily scanning several pages and twirling a pen in her free hand. She looked up with a characteristic half-smile.

“Go on in,” the redhead drawled, leaning back in her chair. “Chief’s waiting for you.”

Malone crossed the threshold into a second, grander office, paneled with oak and furnished with green leather chairs. Chief Johanssen, a thickset man in his late fifties, sat at a handsome desk opposite the double doors, a roaring fire warming his back. Brass lamps lined the walls.

“Malone.” He nodded in her direction. “Come in. Sundar.” Malone followed his gaze to a point just behind her right shoulder where the younger man had materialized. Sundar smiled in greeting as they both moved toward the desk. Johanssen rose and shook their hands, his warm, coarse paws enveloping theirs.

“Glad to see you both.” He settled once again into his armchair. He gestured to the two seats in front of his desk, and the inspectors lowered themselves into the squeaking leather. “Malone, Sundar tells me the sweeps were clean,” he said with a wry grin, “but tell me what you found at the address.”

“Broken gate, sir, just like the sweeps said. Cahill was dead; his study showed signs of the struggle, but nothing else was disturbed.”

The first stray worry lines cracked across Johanssen’s forehead. “Your analysis?”

“Murder with intent, sir.”

Johanssen folded his hands, and Malone waited for the inevitable opposition. “No question about a break-in,” he said. “But this sounds like a struggle and an accident. At Cahill’s age, it’s all too easy.”

Malone understood the chief’s hesitation. Violent crime outside the factory districts, populated with the more desperate types, was uncommon. Except for the occasional poisoning or duels between rivals, they grew exceedingly rare as one approached the Vineyard and the neighborhoods that rippled out from it.

“Doubtful, sir,” she said. “There was bruising at the base of his skull.”

Sundar rubbed the curve at the back of his own head. “Below the bump? That would be hard to hit accidentally unless he fell backward into a desk or shelf or something.”

“Right,” Malone said, cutting Sundar off and continuing before Johanssen could protest further. “And Cahill was slumped against the wall when I found him. No blood, skin, or hair on the furniture. That suggests a blunt instrument, something that the murderer took with him. No bruising around the wrists or forearms. No attempt to restrain him.”

Johanssen’s lower lip pushed into a momentary pout as he sucked his teeth, thinking. “The motive?”

“Theft, sir.”

“Of what? Cahill’s street is filled with merchants and bankers. All more tempting targets.”

“The murderer wanted information, not valuables. Dr Cahill was a historian, and he was working on something before he was killed.” Malone described the scene in Cahill’s study, and the corner of Johanssen’s mouth twitched when she mentioned the history books and the empty desk.

“If I may,” Sundar said, clearing his throat, “the sweeps mentioned the broken gates, but according to them, the gates were bent outwards, and they said they saw shattered glass on the steps outside. Isn’t this the opposite of what would happen if someone broke in?”

“If someone broke in,” Malone said. “No one had to.” At that, she produced the key she had found near the elevator.

Johanssen squinted at it. “Go on.”

Malone crossed one leg as she continued, putting the key on Johanssen’s desk. “How the murderer got this is the real question, but it tells us that he planned. It also tells us that he’s not a professional. Whether he panicked or stumbled, he dropped his key on the way up the elevator, and he couldn’t take the time to return for it. Or couldn’t see it in the dark. The gate was rusted enough for him to break it open with a few good kicks or a couple blows from his weapon. He only had to break out.”

“Why not leave through the subterranean door?” Sundar asked. Every business and residence had one, whether or not it had its own veranda. Recoletta, after all, was built around its subterranean thoroughfares and warrens. “He wouldn’t have had to break that one to open it from the inside, would he?”

“Have you ever been to East Eton? The subterranean avenue is one of the main roads into the Vineyard, and Cahill’s domicile is twenty yards from a railcar stop. The assassin would be in plain view for three or four blocks with nowhere to hide.”

“Easier to slip among the buildings on the surface,” Sundar said.

“Obviously.”

Exhaling, Johanssen furrowed his brow. “And all this for a stack of papers?”

Malone laced her fingers, waiting.

“What concerns me is where the murderer got a key. Assuming you’re right,” Johanssen added. “You know how people are about security, especially on that side of the city. There’s hardly a locksmith in Recoletta who would’ve made that.”

He scratched a cheek with his knuckles. “Farrah should have the contract by the end of the day, Malone. In the meantime, Sundar will assist you.”

The moment she’d been waiting for. “Respectfully, sir, getting the bureaucrats to talk will be hard enough without a rookie in tow.” She sighed. “No offense.”

“None taken.” And he looked like he meant it.

The chief stared down at his desk for a long moment. “Sundar, wait outside.”

The younger inspector disappeared behind the double doors. Chief Johanssen turned his gaze to Malone.

“I know this isn’t how you’d have it, but make an exception for this contract. He needs your experience, and I need to know where that key came from.” Johanssen leaned forward, shadows pooling under his heavy brows. “Besides, Inspector Sundar has a few talents you don’t. People skills are chief among them.”

She gritted her teeth. “I’ve noticed, sir.”

He nodded. “You also know that we don’t see murders in Dr Cahill’s district. Expect that charm to come in handy.”

Malone rose and bowed. “Yes, sir.” She left and followed Sundar into the hall, noticing Farrah’s hopeful gaze in his direction.

“The coroner’s report won’t be ready until tomorrow,” Malone told her new partner as they paced toward the rotunda. “In the meantime, we should try to locate some of Cahill’s old acquaintances.”

“Don’t we need to wait for the Council to approve the contract?” The Municipal Police received contracts from the Council to investigate crimes, petty theft and serial murder alike. They provided the formal authorization to proceed.

“It’s not that strict,” Malone said. “We don’t wait on a case like this. One of the benefits of not working directly under the Council is that we can be more efficient.”

“That’s what separates us from the City Guard, right? They take their orders from the Council, and we just liaise?”

“That, and most of them have scat for brains,” Malone said, relishing Sundar’s discomfort. And that’s why we’re the investigators and they’re the muscle, she thought.

“Oh.” Sundar paused, digesting this new information. “We could start with the Directorate of Preservation.”

“Getting information out of the directorates is a nightmare, and Preservation is the worst. We’ll need the contract and, probably, additional signatures from half a dozen councilors.”

“Can we afford to wait?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

He smiled, fixing his eyes down the hallway. “If you’ll allow me, Inspector Malone, I think I can handle this.”

She glanced sideways at Sundar. Casual confidence wafted off of him like a scent. Nurtured, she guessed, by all the entitlements of expensive schooling, attentive parents, and easy good looks. She resigned herself to this one concession. Either he’d botch this and the chief would finally have to listen to reason, or he’d succeed and they’d get something useful.

“Alright, Sundar. Show me what you can do.”