Streets of blood

18

Rani woke to find that a gang of trolls with sledgehammers was breaking up a road inside her skull. She groaned, looked at the digital, which read eleven-fifteen, and turned over. She wanted to get back to sleep, but she was desperately thirsty. It felt like someone had washed out her mouth with paint-stripper.

She managed to get downstairs without killing herself and staggered around looking for the orange juice. I am never, ever, going to drink that Polish stuff again, she thought. Why couldn’t I have been satisfied with just food and sweets? When was…? I think I started drinking about ten. I sure as hell can’t remember much after ten-thirty.

Taking the bottle from the ancient electric fridge, she dropped the plastic beaker she was going to fill, and thought, Rakk this! I’ll just drink from the bottle.

She drained half of it then and there in the kitchen, then slouched back toward the living room. That was when she saw the scrap of paper lying on the floor, in front of the door with its many locks and chains. The old letterbox had long been nailed shut, so someone must have actually forced the sheet through the infinitesimally small gap between door and floor. That was unusual.

What the frag IS this? she thought, casting a bleary eye over it. It was a leaflet printed in heavy black and red ink on garish yellow paper, an advertisement for an appearance by the Blazing Paranormal Ambulance at The Subway. In the area to be sure, and they did play great electroslam. but the date on the flyer was August fourteenth.

“What the hell is this?" she snapped to no one in particular, and was about to throw the plugger away when the crude scrawl running around the border caught her eye:

May have something to tell you — Exit to Finchley Rd, remember? — Midnight — Can't risk the daytime — You’ll be safe

You bet I’ll be safe, Smeng, Hell, I’ll even get myself a cab, if I can find one willing to do business around here at that hour.

Rani dragged herself back up the stairs and collapsed into bed with a splitting headache. She dozed on and off for an hour or two, then dragged herself out of the sweaty sheets and made for the bathroom. Splashing handfuls of cold water over her face while shivering in her underwear, Rani found no comfort in the fact that she looked only slightly less awful than she felt. And since that was like death warmed over, the mirror wasn’t doing her much of a favor. The window had ice flowers on it, but she wasn’t sure if she was shaking because of the cold or the hangover.

Get out on the streets and get some fresh air, girl, she chided herself. Get yourself a quart of juice, stuff down as many high-sugar sweets as you can without puking, and get this body into working order. Tonight you're going to get one move closer.

“So, what have you been up to these past few days?”

They were savoring the first sips of the chilled champagne, mist forming on the side of the glasses, the long flutes raised to waiting lips. They had sighed as one at the first taste of lemony bubbles exploding in the mouth.

"Well," Francesca replied, licking her deliciously glossed lips, “frankly, I spent a good day stripping my Fuchi-6 and checking it out. I got paranoid about whether someone had been horsing around with it. Ridiculous, of course. No one’s going to get past the security, but I wasn’t entirely rational at the time. I got the new medic program installed and an armor program like you wouldn’t believe. Withstand a tactical nuke, this one. I’ll have to wait on the poison, though.”

“In the interim, I checked some personnel agencies for my own benefit. Downloaded a few megs of various bits and pieces. Left the dumbframe to wander around it all, run some analyses. It’s always useful to see who’s been having a surge of interest in people who, er, work in related fields.” That was enough about her. “What have you boys been up to?”

Geraint replied with a slight shake of the head. “Not a lot. We chewed the fat over a glass or two, look Serrin to the National Museum, caught Hamlet at the Imperial last night, made a little money. There’s a new Paraguayan root extract all the rage with the slammers here and I invested in some, sold some distribution rights, and covered myself with HKB’s commodity insurance. Allowing for the premium, should be up forty, fifty thou. Today’s been quiet.”

“He showed me the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, then took me around the House of Nobles,” Serrin piped in. “I actually had a good time.” Geraint made a polite gesture of self-deprecation as Serrin enthused, then he leaned forward to refill Francesca’s glass.

The evening drifted perfectly. Before long the livened waiters began to emerge from the kitchen with a series of delights, though the three of them barely noticed, so caught up were they in each other’s company.

Geraint must have paid a fortune for this, Serrin thought as he cut himself another slice of the perfect, slightly pink beef and heaped another spoonful of buttered broccoli onto his china plate. Sure, he had the money to pay for it, but Serrin knew plenty of people who wouldn’t treat friends this good.

“Comes from farmlands near home, this beef," Geraint was saying. I can guarantee there’s absolutely nothing in it you wouldn’t want to have in your tissues this time tomorrow. The land went through detox a decade ago. The cow this came from actually ate healthy grass under blue skies. Not factory stuff. A bloody miracle. Enjoy yourselves.”

They hardly needed the invitation. By the time the servants had brought the pavlova and zabaglione and the astonishing coffee tray filled with fresh cream truffles and sculpted mints, they were experiencing a sense of wellbeing none of them had felt for sometime. When the last of Fortnum’s people had gone, closing the door carefully and quietly, they barely even noticed.

Geraint drained the last of the Petrus, fabulously rich and luscious, its aftertaste developing in his mouth and at the back of his throat.

“This wine is empirical proof of the existence of God. And if God exists this proves he must be a benevolent old bastard. I’m always tempted to quote poetry when I drink Petrus." He laughed at himself as he stirred thick cream into his coffee cup. “Only joking. I very, very rarely do that.”

“Only to women.” Francesca smiled seductively at him, almost a challenge across the table as she leaned forward on her elbows. The alcohol had flushed her face slightly, and she tended to be indiscreet at such times.

I wish you hadn’t said that, Geraint thought sadly. Serrin’s beginning to wonder now. He thinks something may be going on. He didn’t ask me about it, and somehow I didn’t feel like saying anything to him.

“Well, that’s different. A little John Donne or Andrew Marvell. Life needs some bittersweet romance now and then."

“Donne or Marvell, or the Queen’s song. That Babylonian song."

“Sumerian. Dumuzi and Inanna’s Ecstasy of Love.”

“How did it go? 'Last night as I, the queen of heaven, was shining bright…'” She was lost in the recollection, forgetting how the verse continued.

But Geraint did not forget. As I was shining bright, as I was dancing, as I was uttering a song at the brightening of the night, he met me…

He looked away, embarrassed and a little pained, gazing out over the skyline. In the winter’s chill, London’s bright city lights shone under a canopy of stars crisscrossed at intervals by shadowy fragments of the weather control domes. Ten million souls. How many of them meeting like that in the brightening of this night?

With a pang of embarrassment. Geraint broke the spell. “Serrin, can you turn on the box, you’re nearest? Check the eleven o’clock news.” Anything to keep the talk from getting any more personal.

The elf got up from his chair and took the remote, zapped up the BBC News channel. I assume that’s what he wants, the elf thought. When in Britain, assume the locals watch the BBC.

The screen flickered instantly to life. It was just ten past the hour, so they only got the tail end of the politics, followed by the face of a bimbo standing uncomfortably in front of a brick wall, her words caught in mid-sentence.

“… tonight that the murder took place. The victim has been identified by police as a Ms. Elizabeth Stride. A police spokesman said the murder was unusually brutal even for this district.” The reporter’s frisson of horror invited her audience to the hypocrisy of feeling shocked all the while they were pruriently interested. “Here in Spitalfields, police revealed, the victim was found dismembered by her attacker. Initial pathscan reports leaked to us say that the body was eviscerated. Senior police pathologist Dr. Leslie Phillips is alleged to have told investigating detectives that the mutilation of the corpse was conducted with surgical precision. The motive for the slaying is unknown, but-”

Seeing Francesca holding her hands to her ears, struggling to blot out the horror of the report, Geraint yelled at Serrin to kill it. A few last words came through before the mage flicked the screen into silence.

"— neighbors state that Ms. Stride received visits from many males and suffered from alcoholism. This is Sian Masterson for the-” and then there was no more.

Geraint drew Francesca’s hands gently from her face and held them in his own. “Sorry, Fran. I didn’t-”

“It’s all right, really. It’s just that it reminded me of what happened. You know, poor Annie.”

A shock went through him that felt like he’d been kicked hard between the legs. His stomach formed into a tight knot and a clawed hand grabbed his heart and squeezed tight. The concerned words of his dinner guests seemed far, far away.

Serrin realized something was wrong, and seemed to be saying, “Geraint? You all right?”

He couldn’t seem to get an answer out. Wanting to hide his distress, he went for the water jug on his desk and, as he did, the sleeve of his dinner jacket caught on the pack of cards he’d left out earlier that afternoon. A single card went flying off the surface of the table. Gripping the water jug with shaking hands, he hardly needed to look down to know what it was.

The card landed faceup. Of course.

Death.

It was a day that improved the longer it went on. Some time around five, Rani began to feel more like an ork again, after plenty of food and the self-indulgence of what claimed to be a bagel with smoked salmon. Whether or not it was, it cost the same as the real thing, and it tasted bloody wonderful. She was feeling good about a lot of things right now, and fairly secure about her destination for later that evening. She’d done some advance checking of the streets and alleys around the Finchley Road exit.

The nuyen had given her confidence, and she’d managed to pick up a new clip for the Ceska. She’d also purchased a couple of trauma patches from Mohsin’s nephew. He’d charged an inflated rate, but she knew the sterilized packs wouldn’t have any pinpricks because the boy would never cheat family.

And Imran still wasn’t showing his face. Sanjay had found himself a white girl, probably some spotty-faced little thing from the streets who he’d fool around with until he got bored. If the girl was white, then it couldn’t be anything serious, and besides, Rani was glad not to have him underfoot in the house. Best of all, he wouldn’t be doped to the nines all day. Can’t rub a slinky snakegirl if you’re smacked out of your tree, Sanjay baby, she reflected cynically.

She checked the gun for the umpteenth time. She also rechecked the canister meter, which showed it still ninety per cent full, and cleaned her jacket. Time I got a new one, Rani decided.

But she had met Mohinder on a street off Brick Lane and he’d come up with some body armor for her, delivered to her door for a little extra. It hadn’t left her very much of the money he’d paid her for the Predator, but the vest and thigh guards were good and strong.

She fantasized about a stream of gear coming to her door. It was foolishness, of course. She hadn’t the money to become a Street samurai, and where she was going at midnight she would be among friends anyway. But she did have boosted reflexes, just enough hardware to get excited about on the day after her eighteenth birthday, and tonight was another adventure.

One step closer to the truth.

Rani did not see the evening news. She had no idea just how exciting it was all about to get.