The water serpent hissed, lashed the night air with an icy tongue, and retreated into the reservoir. It left no trace save a sharper edge to the ammonia smell.
“Hells,” Teo said. “Knife and bone and all the hells. You weren’t kidding about teeth.”
“No.”
“What is that thing?”
“Tzimet.” He said the word like a curse.
“I’ve seen demons. That’s no demon.”
“It’s not a demon. But it’s
“Qet’s body and Ilana’s blood.” Teo was not a religious woman—few people were religious any more, since the God Wars—but the old ways had the best curses. “That thing’s living in our water.”
Her voice held two levels of revulsion. Anyone could have heard the first, the common terror. Only someone who knew how seriously Teo took her work with Red King Consolidated would detect her emphasis on the word “our.”
“No.” Caleb knelt and wiped the meat juice off his gloved fingers onto the ground. “It’s not
“What do you mean, it
“The Craft keeps our reservoirs clean: wards against germs, fish, Scorpionkind larvae, anything that might pollute or corrupt. Charms to curb evaporation. The reservoir’s deep, with dark shadows at the bottom. When the sun and stars shine, a border forms between light and darkness. The Craft presses against that border. If there’s enough pressure, it pokes a tiny hole in the world.” He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Nothing physical can fit through, only patterns. That’s what these Tzimet are.” He pointed to the reservoir. “Like seed crystals. A bit of living night seeps into the water, and the water becomes part of the night.”
“I’ve never seen a crystal with teeth.” She paused, corrected herself. “Outside of a gallery. But that one didn’t move.” She pointed to the blood. “Who was it?”
“Security guard. Night roster says the guy’s name was Halhuatl. The Wardens thought this was a homicide until the reservoir tried to eat them.”
Gravel growled on the road behind: the golem-carts arrived at last. Caleb turned. Exhaust puffed from joints in the golems’ legs. RKC workers in gray uniform jackets walked from cart to cart, checking the rowan logs piled within. Two junior analysts stood beside the foreman, taking notes. Good. The workers knew their business. They didn’t need his people interfering.
“Horrible way to die,” Teo said.
“Quick,” Caleb answered. “But, yes.”
“Poor bastard.”
“Yeah.”
“Now we know Tzimet are in there, we can keep them from getting out. Right?”
“They can’t get into the water system, but to keep them imprisoned we need better Craftsmen than we’ve been able to get out here so far. Those glowing glyphs hide the reservoir from animals that want a drink. We’ve inverted them to hide the outside world from the Tzimet. They can’t hear us or smell us, but they could kill us no problem if they knew we were here.”
“You sure know how to make a lady feel safe.”
“The Craft division’s woken Markoff, Billsman, and Telec; once they arrive, they’ll build a shield over the water. Feel safe then.”
“No way Telec’s sober enough for work at this time of night. And Markoff will be trying to impress the shorefront girls with his rich-and-sinister routine.”
“Dispatch found them all, and claims they’re up for it. Anyway, the Tzimet aren’t a big deal in the meantime, long as they don’t get into the pipes.”
“Glad to hear it.” She grimaced. “I think I’ll lay off tap water all the same.”
“Don’t let the boss catch you.”
“I said I’d stop drinking it, not selling it. Can this kind of infection happen any time?”
“Technically?” He nodded. “The odds of Tzimet infestation in a given year are a hundred thousand to one against or so. We didn’t expect anything like this for at least another century. Poison, bacterial blooms, Scorpionkind, yes. Not this.”
“So you don’t think it was natural?”
“Might have been. Or someone might have helped nature along. Good odds on the latter.”
“You live in a grim universe.”
“That’s risk management for you. Anything that can go wrong, will—with a set probability given certain assumptions. We tell you how to fix it, and what you should have done to keep it from happening in the first place. At times like these, I become a hindsight professional.” He pointed at the blood. “We ran the numbers when Bright Mirror was built, forty-four years ago, and thought the risks were acceptable. I wonder if the King in Red will break the news to Hal’s family. If he has a family.”
“The boss isn’t a comforting figure.”
“I suppose not.” A line of golem-carts rolled past behind them.
“Can you imagine it? A knock, and you answer the door to see a giant skeleton in red robes? With that flying lizard of his coiled on your lawn, eating your dog?”
“There would be heart attacks.” Caleb couldn’t resist a slim smile. “People dying with the door half open. Every personal injury Craftsman in the city would descend on us like sharks when blood’s in the water.”
Teo clapped him on the shoulder. “Look who’s got his sense of humor back.”
“I might as well laugh. I have another three hours or so of this.” He waved over his shoulder at the carts with their cargo. A bleary brigade of revenants in maintenance jumpsuits lurched by, bearing rowan. They stank of grave-musk. “I won’t leave until three, maybe four.”
“Should I be worried that it takes demons to break you out of your funk?”
“Everyone likes to be needed,” he said. “I might be late to work tomorrow.”
“I’ll tell Tollan and the boys you were out keeping the world safe for tyranny.” She fished her watch out of her pocket, and frowned.
“You late for something?”
“A little.” She closed the watch with a click. “It’s not important.”
“I’m fine. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”
“You’re sure? I can stay here if you need me.”
“Fate of the city on the line here. I have my hands full. No room for self-pity. Go meet your girl.”
“How did you know there was a girl?”
“Who else would be waiting for you at two in the morning? Go. Don’t get in trouble on my account.”
“You better not be lying.”
“You’d know if I was.”
She laughed, and retreated into the night.
The maintenance crew poured ten tons of rowan logs into the reservoir. Revenants did most of the hands- on work, since they smelled less appetizing to the Tzimet. Soon, a smooth layer of wood covered the water. Caleb thanked the foreman as his people slunk back to their beds.
The rowan would block all light from stars and moon and sun. The wood’s virtue poisoned Tzimet, and deprived of the light that cast their shadows, the creatures would wither and die.
Overhead, Wardens circled on their Couatl mounts. Heavy feathered wings beat fear through the sky, and Caleb felt serpents’ eyes upon him.
By sunrise, every executive in Red King Consolidated would be knocking on Caleb’s door, demanding to know how Bright Mirror was corrupted. Craftsmen could bend lightning to their will, cross oceans without aid, break gods in single combat, but they remained human enough to hunt scapegoats in a crisis. Sixty years after Dresediel Lex cast off the gods’ yolk, its masters still demanded blood.
So Caleb searched for a cause. Bright Mirror had been built with safeguards upon safeguards. If a mistake
