City of Ruin

T HIRTY-SIX

Jeryd drank tea, chatted with the waitress as she came to the end of her shift, but mostly he made some ephemeral notes that quickly became doodles. He watched her talking to another old rumel, and wondered if this was all she ever had to do, and if it got boring.

He sat waiting at a table by the window of the bistro, biding his time and thinking about all the things he had seen so far in this intense city.

The street door opened, a little bell rang, and Jeryd peeked up, still fractionally on edge. As if a giant spider would come waltzing in through the front door…

Bellis, Abaris and Ramon strolled in. 'Come along with us, Jeryd,' Bellis called out. 'Tonight, we converse in higher places.'

'Don't you fancy a drink?'

Bellis patted the inside of her tweeds. 'My own supply. But something warming first, to help it along my system, would be delightful.'

*

Up on the flat roof, Jeryd handed over his gift of maps one by one in the darkness, so Ramon and Abaris had to tilt them this way and that to catch some of the dim light from one of the street lamps below. They whispered swift and private matters, which merely heightened Jeryd's curiosity as to what hell they were up to in this city. After some curt discussion, each map was pocketed.

The completion of the exchange prompted Bellis into motion, and she bounded forward keenly to produce her relic. 'Now then, what we have here is a wonderful device designed to attract spiders.'

'That it?' If Jeryd was being honest, it didn't look like much, merely a narrow obsidian rod with a glowing bulb at the top. It seemed even less impressive given that the weather had turned even more sour, and he was freezing.

'Of course it is, you silly man,' Bellis added. 'Its structure is made from tektites, a mineral originating from another world – ha, we always say that, don't we? – since it's found mostly in meteorites, but whatever the stuff contains, it has tested superbly in sucking up dozens of our little arachnid friends. We've augmented – you know the word? – augmented the frequencies of the inner circuitry and so, according to the theory, we should have this giant arachnid of yours bagged in no time.'

'And when it gets here?' Jeryd enquired.

'Ah yes, the boys have been working on that. Ramon?'

The sinister-looking bald man leaned down to pick up a small bag. From it he retrieved a small brass tripod, which he then lowered to the rooftop, several feet away.

'Best move back,' Abaris warned, arms wide, steering them back another several feet at least. He pulled an ordinary stick from his pocket, and threw it in the direction of the tripod.

The relic remained inert, not reacting.

'It wasn't actually meant to do anything because it was too small,' Bellis whispered to Jeryd. 'Now, watch this.'

Ramon moved towards the relic, hands held behind his back. As soon as he was within two feet, light stuttered into being, aggregating into the glowing bars of a cage. Light continued to spit and stutter, and Ramon was totally imprisoned within it. Grinning, he made a flamboyant bow so that the light reflected off his bald head.

'So you see,' Bellis explained, 'when your spider arrives, it will be catered for very well indeed.'

'You lot really are a bunch of wise old geniuses, you realize,' Jeryd said.

'It takes one individual of wisdom to notice another,' Bellis declared.

'Nah, I've done nothing yet,' Jeryd protested. 'I won't consider myself as having achieved a single thing until that monster is locked away.' He waited as the cage was deactivated, the light collapsing into blackness, and there was a noticeable absence, some void left by the relic's trickery, even the faint smell of burning. Jeryd was mightily impressed.

'Let's give it a go then,' Bellis said, and the others set up the two devices next to each other on the rooftop. And they waited, shivering, in the cold winds.

Jeryd regarded the cityscape in anticipation, wondering how his own deepest fears would manifest after his experiences with Bellis's orb.

*

Nanzi felt something deep within, a summoning in her very core. She shuddered, leapt up from her bed, glanced furtively around the room. The black cat peeked up in surprise from the foot of the bed.

'Is everything all right, my love?' Voland asked, glancing up from his book as he lay beside her.

'I don't feel all that well. I might make a drink and take some fresh air outside.'

'Would you like me to get it for you?'

'No, I'll go.' She pushed aside the sheets and clambered off the bed. Her spider appendages rooted out her skirt and boots, and within the minute she was heading downstairs. At the front door, she rested her hand on the frame, staring across the street, hoping to find something. The darkened buildings were defined by starlight, while a couple of tramps huddled by a small pit fire.

What was this strange sensation that had seduced her out here? It was like a thirst. All her emotions had condensed. A need for some long-lost lover. A lament for a dead friend. But this was rare – this was calling for her… other state. She felt intoxicated by her urges and, within the minute, she began to collapse inwards, then fold out again into her spider form.

With one limb she pulled the door shut, then crawled up along the surface of the wall to the roof of the abattoir. There, she could read the world in a different manner, decipher these gentle vibrations of activity. The city always appeared thronging to her in this form, but some way in the distance she could sense something so alluring, so delicious, so essential that she could not prevent herself from scuttling as quickly as she could across the deserted nightscape.

*

Jeryd watched in slack-jawed awe as hundreds of tiny spiders bled from the city's architecture.

Out of habit he felt the need to jump on something to avoid them, but there was no way of escape up here. And this time… he felt no fear.

Black streams of arachnids centred on the Grey Hairs' relic, countless trickles and trails of tiny legs and bulbous torsos. As he gazed across the nearby rooftops he could see their massed progress gliding across the slick slate-crowned buildings, and they were coming from all directions. By now Jeryd had retreated well out of the way for fear of being smothered by them, but he did not feel anything like as petrified as he used to be.

Jeryd's nerves jittered from simply being present in this intensely surreal scene, from being surrounded by what seemed like all of the spiders in the Boreal Archipelago. Creatures that normally inhabited the dead regions of the city were gathering in one place – but he did not tremble, and felt only a fraction of that familiar tightness in his heart. All the time, though, he kept a lookout for the one monster, stealing glances between the buildings and wherever the moonlight failed to penetrate.

He untucked a blade from his boot and clutched it uncertainly; of what possible use could it be against this immense arachnid abomination? The Grey Hairs, by contrast, seemed thoroughly relaxed, as they slouched about in casual postures. Bellis turned to focus on him now and then with her hands resting on her hips. Jeryd simply nodded the answer for her unspoken question, Are you all right?

Ramon was sitting at the edge of the roof, while Abaris seemed preoccupied with the workings of some other relic. It was as if they found themselves in crazy situations like this every day of their lives.

Bellis suddenly called out, 'Good heavens, I think it's coming!'

Jeryd clambered to her side, his vision following the direction she was pointing in. About forty feet away, to the east, a large shape could be seen lumbering closer, moving with a fluid gait across and down in between the architecture, now and then spitting out a slick gossamer rope of silk to aid its progress.

'Bloody hell,' Jeryd breathed. This was all right in theory, but now the thing was actually on its way, he had no idea how to cope with it.

'Aye, I'll second that,' Abaris murmured, now beside them.

They watched it come closer, accruing in size all the time. People peering out of windows began to scream, and in the streets below others avoided its path. It almost seemed drunk, staggering in and out of vision with ragged movements. The creature was mammoth, each leg probably longer than Jeryd himself, yet it hauled its bulk onto the stone parapet of their rooftop with a series of precise clicks, as thousands of its miniature kin swarmed around and underneath.

With its myriad eyes, the monster observed the glow of the relic tentatively, but it simply could not resist its allure; a distilled, love-hate tension generated between them. It could not counter this enchantment. Very slowly, it edged closer, lowering its bulbous black head, and levering its thorax and abdomen forward. Then it stretched out its two front legs like a dog, tilting back up on the four hind ones.

There, it quivered ecstatically.

Light suddenly snapped itself free from the relic, lashing up to form a huge cage and trapped the spider within. The creature threw itself at the bars of light only to be stung savagely into retreat. It lunged repeatedly at its light-restraints, all the while emitting high-pitched screeches. Back and forth, the stinging inflicted by the bars was clearly audible, and after several attempts, the spider cowered into submission, its body rising and falling in spasms.

'Splendid!' Bellis declared, clapping her hands. 'It was that simple, eh, Jeryd?' The glow of the lure relic ceased, the torrent of smaller spiders hesitated, then began to move of their own volition, suddenly a million individuals once again. For a moment they milled about uncertainly, and it seemed an age until they had located tiny exits in the surrounding buildings.

Approaching the cage, Jeryd stood and gawked at the beast contained within. He'd expected to be far more frightened than he now felt. Was this the thing that was snatching people off the streets? What the hell kind of case was he dealing with here? He was long used to dealing with monsters of the human or rumel kind, but this… this was something else completely.

The three Grey Hair cultists approached from behind and studied the monstrosity alongside him. Bellis had even begun making sketches in a notebook, while the others inspected it from all angles, Abaris muttering anatomical features and cladistic theory out loud.

It seemed to possess innumerable eyes, all of them reflecting the light radiated by the cage. All staring back at him. Examining him. And whether or not this was his paranoia, he couldn't tell, but it certainly seemed as if the giant spider knew exactly who Jeryd was.

*

Voland leapt out of bed as he heard the Phonoi make a screecownstairs.

Where was Nanzi? In a panic, and sensing something wasn't right, he scampered around the room hurriedly dressing himself. He darted away from the bedroom, still bleary-eyed, and called out for her. There was no reply. He stumbled downstairs.

There was no sign of her throughout the entire house in fact, so he hastened even deeper through the darkness, feeling his way along the walls to the abattoir with its familiar stench of death. He was met only with silence.

'Nanzi?!' he shouted urgently. 'Nanzi, are you there?'

'She's not here,' one of the Phonoi replied. It quivered in and out of ghost-form, first the face of a screaming child, then an old woman, then blackness.

'Sorry, sir,' another chimed. 'We know she's out. We sense her…'

'She's right across the city.'

'We sense she's trapped somewhere.'

In the stillness of the room the Phonoi began to glow uniformly. They shifted through the air, as they always did, drifting about in sharp bursts only to skim away into nothing at all. He wished they would stay still so he could establish some clear answers.

'Where is she?' Voland pleaded.

'Trapped is all we know,' the Phonoi declared. 'We simply feel it.'

'I need to get to her,' Voland ordered. 'Help me, please.'

'Anything for Doctor Voland,' they called out soothingly. 'Yes, anything at all.'

After a brief silence, a number of them took form and became one mass, then began to circle the room in rapid motion. They tightened their circuit around Voland, a strangling wind that settled underneath him, and around his waist. He felt a sudden lightness, and realized he was being lifted into the air then moved backward along the route he had taken to the slaughterhouse.

'She'll need clothes when she transforms…' Voland began.

They whisked him upstairs in a flurry, let him stuff a few of her garments into a satchel, then down again. It was dizzying.

Ahead of him a door burst back, and as he flew out suddenly into the streets of the city, people pointed and stared. The Phonoi tilted him upright, like he was walking on air, and he held on to his hat as they rose higher, heading to the west, above the snow-slick rooftops of Villiren, noticing the little street fires and torches and flashes of magic, the movement of customers to and from taverns, the patrols of soldiers… all becoming smaller with the distance.

He flew towards his lover.

*

Jeryd turned and pointed. 'Over there, in the distance above thooftops.' Something was moving across the horizon, a figure with aint white glow blurring its outline. It dipped back and forth, theoved steadily. Bats scattered from the crevices along its route, making their escape in erratic paths.

'What on earth do you suppose that is?' Bellis asked.

'It wears a top hat.' Abaris was peering through a small telescope. 'Blimey. Those are Phonoi around it, I'll wager.'

'Bugger, I hope not,' Bellis whispered. 'You sure, Abaris?'

'Aye, for sure,' the man replied, moving the brass tube in gentle pursuit of the moving figure. 'Quite an intensity of them, I'd say. They're helping him to fly.'

'What the hell are Phonoi?' Jeryd had moved with the Grey Hairs away from the cage, towards the edge of the rooftop, infected by Bellis's sudden nervousness.

'Spirit wraiths,' Bellis explained. 'Those blighters were once prisoners – murderers to be precise – who had their lives quite literally sucked out of them by means of ancient technologies. At a very creepy and unsavoury point in our history, I'd say.'

'I'm not sure I've a clue what you're on about,' Jeryd sighed.

'The process was intended to separate people's minds from their bodies, but it failed to produce any real results, so at the time led to the belief that mind and body were in fact one. Instead, it was the prisoners'… essence, for want of a less technical word, that was ripped from them, and distilled neatly into portable devices. That stolen essence is what comprises the Phonoi, making each of them a spirit of murder. And, pardon my language, but they're bloody nasty to deal with close up.'

And I used to think those nights in Villjamur were full of freak shows, Jeryd thought. This place is twice as bad.

'So we shall deal with this from afar!' Bellis immediately scurried back to her satchel, and began rummaging around inside. The figure was coming closer now, still hovering on that white wind. The Grey Hairs advised Jeryd to shuffle back towards the cage for his own safety. He was neither reluctant nor eager to do so, feeling so utterly out of place amid such weirdness. There were clearly things in this world of greater mystery than he knew how to deal with.

The old cultists took up position on the edge of the roof, each of them gripping an identical metal tube in one hand. Abaris seemed to pull a strip of material off his tube, amber dust from it caught up in the wind. They conferred. They clashed their relics like tankards in a bar. Suddenly something sparked up into the sky above, like a firework, carving the air with a scream, which faded as their missile penetrated the cloud base.

Thunder rolled in the sky, or something like it, and then came a glow that highlighted the dense layers of cumulus.

Well, I never… Jeryd thought, as if he could witness any more surprises tonight.

Swooping down from out of the clouds came a titanic skeletal form of a garuda, constructed entirely from a purple light. Only the edges of this being glowed; in the gaps where the meat should be, there was nothing.

It swooped down directly above their heads, then arced majestically towards the oncoming figure. Jeryd noticed how Abaris and Ramon were both grinding their relics this way and that, in the same manner, as if operating a kite.

As the electric garuda sailed down, forcing a current of wind, the figure spotted it and began heading away instantly, towards the east, no longer towards them, all the time chased by its relic-inspired pursuer. The hunt was fast and intense, their weird shapes skimming just above the tops of houses, ripping up roof tiles and stirring street detritus in their wake.

It was all over before the first minute was out.

The garuda opened a skeletal framework of jaws and consumed the figure whole, then turned slowly in a graceful arc back towards the rooftop where Abaris and Ramon were cheering loudly like a couple of kids playing games. They guided the apparition gently down towards the cage, murmuring brief orders and directions.

Jeryd edged backwards in alarm, wary of this construct. As it merged with the bars of light, the figure that had been pursuing them was deposited alongside the spider, his top hat falling to the floor beside him.

'Oh, well done, boys!' Bellis cried.

It was only then that the spider began to change shape, at first lurching and convulsing, then its limbs bending and contracting out of context.

You are absolutely bloody joking, Jeryd thought. That's impossible…

It contorted into his Inquisition aide, Nanzi, who was now naked, and upon seeing this, the man with the top hat immediately produced a satchel with some clothing in it. She hastily covered herself up, and then huddled alongside him. He placed his arm around her protectively.

The cultists and Jeryd stood in awed silence observing their catch.

'We've a fine brace tonight, then. Shame we couldn't trap the Phonoi, still, it's a fairly good haul even for us old things,' Bellis declared. Then, after a deep frown: 'I say, Jeryd, do you suppose these two know each other?'

'I'm not sure about that,' he replied, eyeing them still. 'But would you believe that girl is meant to be my assistant?'

*

Back in the lazaret adjoining the Inquisition headquarters, deep in thight with all the investigators and aides and administrative staff safely at home, and with Abaris and Ramon 'recalibrating' their equipment, whatever the hell that meant, Jeryd and Bellis contemplated Nanzi and the man in the top hat. After restricting the initial cage in size, they had forced the pair to walk the streets surrounded by their light-prison, while passers-by gawked in awe. Jeryd brought them back to the quarantine section, afraid of what diseases these culprits might carry.

With them safely behind bars, Jeryd lit a flambeau fixed to the wall, and their faces glowed softly from the corner of the room. A deep chill persisted, but he lit no fire for their comfort.

For some time he merely watched them. His mind was overflowing with questions. But where to start?

'What are you?' he demanded finally.

Her head was down, her hair in front of her face.

'What were you doing? You claim to be some honourable girl, and yet… And yet…'

Jeryd sat down on a stool with a sigh, his energy drained utterly by the scenes he had witnessed earlier. There was always a strange sensation of emptiness when he brought in a perpetrator after such a difficult case. The search for them filled up some hole in his life, so once they had been brought in, there was just a void. He devoted such a degree of mindspace to each individual criminal, carrying their activities around in his head. 'Why didn't you kill me, Nanzi, when you had the chance?'

She looked up at him meekly as if to speak, but after the man whispered something to her, she immediately focused again on the floor.

'I'm guessing,' Bellis suggested to Jeryd, 'that you must have provided her with some sort of essential information. Hmm. Was there any specific Inquisition stuff that only you had access to?'

After a moment, Jeryd mumbled, 'The commander, maybe. She was with me some of the times when he would give me military updates.' Did she want details of patrols? The movements of soldiers around the city so she could plan her next killing? Maybe to know when to be ready to flee?

'But she tried to kill me earlier, in the theatre…' None of this was making sense. Perhaps she… this thing actually did care for him enough to let him live for a while. Jeryd turned to the man with the top hat. It was just possible that this fellow had some control over matters. 'Hey, you there, what's your name?'

'My name is Doctor Voland.' The words were spoken crisply, and he held himself with great dignity. So at last some answers might be forthcoming.

Voland: the same name Malum had given him. The same man who made weird specimens, and dealt in questionable meat. Jeryd would get to that later – the essentials first. 'Is Nanzi here your wife?'

'She is my partner,' Voland insisted.

'So that's why you came to rescue her, right?'

No reply.

After a moment's consideration, Jeryd stood up and approached the bars to study him closely. He was a distinguished-looking gentleman, much older than Nanzi. His clothing was also finely tailored, and there was an air of mild arrogance about his manners. Although at the moment he appeared glum, in another situation he might electrify a room with his persona.

Jeryd asked, 'What's your business in Villiren?'

No reply.

'Why did you come out to the rooftops tonight?'

No reply.

'What do you know about selling bad meat?'

He looked up at that, but gave no reply.

Jeryd turned to Bellis with a nod.

'Right you are, investigator,' she responded. The cultist pulled out the device that activated the imprisoning bars of light, this time separating the prisoners by bisecting their cage. Voland at once took renewed interest, his face expressing his concern for his lover. He prodded the intervening bars, but wrenched his hands away as soon as he touched whatever electric diablerie they contained. Nanzi had said nothing all this time, simply staring into the distance. One of her knees was raised so he could see the black, coarse-haired appendage that was one of her legs. She can't even look at me, Jeryd thought. He didn't know what to make of her now – though he was getting used to being betrayed by those closest to him. How could such a quiet, determined young woman be a killer? It made no sense. It was not in her essential nature to be so.

'Leave her alone,' Voland cautioned, looking from her to Jeryd, and back again.

'You're not in a position to give orders,' Jeryd declared. 'Talk, or her cell gets smaller than yours, by a considerable amount.'

Voland sighed deeply and Jeryd knew that he would provide answers soon enough. He might be proud and determined, but he seemed to be too much in love with Nanzi to have her suffer any further.

'All right,' he conceded. 'But please refrain from harming her.'

'Harm her?' Jeryd asked. 'We've reason to believe her responsible for the murder of dozens of innocent civilians, as well as military personnel.'

For a while, Jeryd could hear nothing but his own feet as he walked back and forth through the room. 'First thing I want to know is how does Nanzi change her shape from this one to… that creature? I've heard how certain members of the underworld haven't been too happy with your shoddy work in creating hybrids.'

'That's absolutely outrageous.'

Jeryd smiled. 'You admit to constructing hybrids then? Did you make Nanzi into a monster?'

'It's a difficult art…' Dejectedly, Voland went on to relate the couple's history, about the collapsed wall on the harbour, and her damaged legs and his talents as a surgeon. He confirmed that Nanzi possessed this innate ability to change physical state between that of a spider and that of a human being – aside from her new legs, which remained arachnid.

'Touching,' Jeryd added sarcastically. 'So, tell me, where do you live?'

Voland gave the address of the building that Jeryd had been loitering outside only recently, the one into which the dead garuda had been taken.

Jeryd rested an arm on the bars as he leaned towards his captives. The wall of purple light gave off a deep warmth and a faint hum. 'We have witnesses stating that Nanzi, in her other form, has committed the murder of military personnel. We also have reason to believe that she has been responsible for numerous other deaths. What do you want to say on the matter?'

Voland peered at her, through the light, then back towards Jeryd. He merely gave a brief nod, and pressed his fingers to his eyes as if to prevent himself from becoming overly emotional.

'How much control do you have over her?' Jeryd asked.

'I don't know what you mean?' Voland replied.

'Did you force her to serve you in some way?'

Nanzi suddenly spoke up for the first time. 'I did what I did because I loved him, and I did it for myself, because it was the right thing to do. We work as a team.'

'So you confess, then?' Jeryd offered, unmoved, unflinching.

There was venom in her eyes, as if the satanic creature she once was had resurfaced. Jeryd was glad of the bars between them, and suddenly he realized the meaning in her last words. 'You were a team? You worked together? What on earth were you both doing, just killing all these people for sport?'

No reply.

'We'll have your residence searched immediately, you realize. Whatever you're hiding there, we'll find it. We'll dig up every last piece of information and, if we don't find enough, the next procedure is to commence torture.'

As if to hammer her point home, Bellis made the light-bars flare even hotter, and Jeryd could see the resignation in the man's eyes. He didn't want anything bad to happen to Nanzi.

What Voland told him next stunned him. 'We've nothing to lose, not now anyway. So, to business. I am working on a high-level contract from Villjamur.'

'What kind of service is required?'

'I'm a specialist surgeon,' he replied proudly. 'I don't just make hybrids for the underworld. Although my current work now is highly specialized – and commercialized, if you will. You may have noticed that there is an abundance of food in Villiren, which seems odd given the desperate times we live in.'

'You work on providing food?'

'Indeed, and there is an ample meat supply – essential during the ice age, and also a period of war. I am responsible for that supply – or rather, Nanzi and myself are.'

Jeryd had a bad feeling about this conversation. He thought back to the garuda he had witnessed being carried into the abattoir building. 'Garuda meat?' Is that why it smelled off?

'On occasion, yes, but mainly human or rumel meat. Good, lean chunks of it, distributed though the markets. To feed the people, and nourish our city. Our culture does the same to animals, so what difference does it make regarding humans?'

Was the man lying just to show off?

Jeryd turned to catch the expression of shock on Bellis's face. 'How can this even be possible?' she managed to say, but Jeryd had already put together the picture in his head.

'Quite simple, really,' he offered. 'Nanzi here ventures out at night in her other form. She drags citizens from the streets, leaving no evidence – hence they're considered missing persons, and not murder victims. Then she brings the corpses back to Voland. He performs whatever sick rituals he needs. They then sell the cuts of meat to the gangs, who in turn sell it on to the traders. In essence, the city is now full of unwitting cannibals.'

'And we once suspected you weren't all that bright.' Voland was clearly getting some pleasure from listening to this explanation. The man pushed himself up to his feet, flicked back his sleeves and approached Jeryd, till the two stood almost face to face. There was some sinister elegance about the man, some deep connection with thoughts that were too sickening for Jeryd to contemplate. 'Why did you kill soldiers? You knew they're helping the city.' 'They provided good meat that would feed numerous families.' 'Where did you draw the line? Women, children?' 'We never took children,' Voland declared with pride. 'Couldn't look into their innocent little faces? Too much guilt?' Jeryd suggested.

'No, too little meat,' Voland replied. 'There was no point.' Scumbag… 'This high-level contract you mentioned, is it in any way connected to Emperor Urtica?'

'You know him, then! He's an old school chum, from back in Villjamur. Never thought he'd rise so high in the Council, let alone become Emperor.'

'You're not one of his cult, are you?'

'I know of no cult. He merely wanted his people here fed, and this is such a simple solution, isn't it? For me, it's an interesting little job, and it keeps the money rolling in – certainly a more interesting challenge than making trophy beasts for the gangs. In a free-market economy such as ours, dear investigator, everything has a price. All those deaths… well, they're merely the externalities of the market. Would you rather have people starving?'

How free do you think the market is, in an Empire like ours that cripples one endeavour and props up another? Jeryd thought. Bohr, how can anyone even begin to justify any of this?

'Is it just Urtica you're working for?'

After a moment's reflection, staring into the darkness and absent-mindedly rubbing his arm, Voland declared, 'Might as well drag the rest along with us: our Portreeve Lutto knew about it, for a start.' A grin slid up one side of his face.

Jeryd composed himself from the shock, turned away, then methodically paced the room in a soundless rage. He was not at all surprised to learn that Urtica was at the root of this evil. Even from afar, the Emperor seemed able to disgust him with his sick machinations, his secret dealings, his whispered words and cult worship. In this Empire, the innocent were considered merely numbers and statistics, overlooked in a relentless drive for expansion and the centralization of power. But Lutto too? Would Jeryd even be able to report this connection, and risk being hunted down by the portreeve's henchmen?

He glanced at Nanzi, who still sat hunched on the floor, knees drawn up to her chin, utterly silent.

'Do you eat the killings yourself?' Jeryd asked Voland.

'Oh heavens, no,' Voland laughed. 'I'm a strict vegetarian. To me, all meat involves killing.'

'How many citizens have you killed in total?' Jeryd demanded. 'All those people who have disappeared off the city streets – are they all down to you?'

'Quite probably,' Voland replied coolly. 'Although I'm sure quite a few may have gone missing for other reasons. I couldn't really put a number on them since we've been operating for some time. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a couple of thousand. It's been the devil's own work…'

The doctor seemed totally detached from his activities. In his own head, the man must clearly rationalize the impossible and the immoral, to the point where he considered he was actually doing something commendable.

'You sick, sick bastards,' Jeryd declared. 'You don't regret any of this carnage, do you?'

'Why should I regret it?' Voland replied. 'I've been keeping people alive and healthy enough to face a war. One must always look at the bigger picture, investigator.'

In all his decades of working for the Inquisition, Jeryd had never encountered such large-scale horror. Thousands dead and distributed along the food chain: Villiren had unknowingly become a city of cannibals. He might have even eaten such meat himself.

Jeryd indicated for Bellis to disconnect the intervening light-bars separating the captives. After a tentative movement, as they contemplated the removal of the barrier, the pair of them embraced for all to see in the chilling darkness of the cell.

Jeryd left the room with Bellis, too depressed to speak to her at first.

Having made sure the cell door was locked firmly, with as many security measures as possible, they made their way along the corridor heading back to Jeryd's office. There he lit a fire before the two of them slumped into chairs in contemplative silence.

Bellis spoke first. 'Well now, you've caught them, at least.'

Jeryd exhaled deeply. 'I'm a lousy investigator, and I just have to face the fact.'

'How d'you mean?'

'I took far too long to put all the pieces in place. I'm inept. How could I not consider Nanzi being involved…' Jeryd shook his head. 'I'm struggling at this job, even though I try hard. I'm too old maybe. I guess reality catches up with you eventually.'

'Nonsense, you miserable sod. The killers are caught, that's all that matters. So what will you do with that pair of freaks?'

'I'll have to search their dwellings and see if there's any further evidence. We've already got witnesses to Nanzi's transformation, and their own confession, so it should be quite a straightforward case that'll result in their execution according to Empire laws. That's if we can manage to convince our superiors – they claimed the portreeve is in on this racket, too.'

Bellis nodded. 'We don't know that for certain since we only have their word for it.'

'True,' Jeryd murmured. 'And thanks for helping me. It was you who did all this – brought them in so easily, and helped me get over my own fears. You're a remarkable woman, and I realize there's very little in this for you…'

'Little in it?' Bellis said. 'You are silly! I do things because I choose to, helping others because I'm not thinking of myself all the time.'

'That why you're here in Villiren, to help others?'

'More or less,' Bellis admitted cryptically.

'You're never going to tell me, are you?'

'Next time we have drinks, perhaps I'll tell you then.' Bellis gave him a distant smile.

Jeryd realized then that, if anything emerged from all of tonight's debacle, he had at least made a friend, and that you could never be too old for that sort of thing.

'And what's the situation with Ramon and Abaris then? Always giving each other funny looks.'

'Oh, those old queens,' Bellis said lovingly, 'they're such wonderful cultists. Never give me a dull moment. Their actual speciality is necromancy believe it or not, but despite that there is more life and wisdom in what they do and say than I get from nearly anyone I've met. I don't like to say too much about them – you know, with the laws and such, primitive as our culture is. But you seem the sort who wouldn't make an issue of it.'

'Well, I'm not too stuck in my ways, despite being an old-timer. But I notice Ramon never says anything,' Jeryd added.

'No. The old fellow received some kind of energy overdose once from a relic. Robbed him of his voice and, oddly, his hair. But Abaris adores him and speaks for him often, since they know each other so well. I've seen Ramon only need to look at Abaris in a particular way and Abaris can instantly interpret it.'

They both looked up at the sound of an explosion outside – somewhere deep in the city. The floor shook just moments before a second explosion.

'What the hell was that?' Jeryd exclaimed.