“I was on my way home from college,” he said. “I’d stopped to get food, and couldn’t figure out why the whole town was out on the streets. Then they arrived.”
“And?”
“And it was a procession.” He showed no sign of elaborating.
“What do you think about them?”
The Barekusu meant a lot of things to different people, and my partner was no exception. Jax had been educated in a religious school, though he focused on political science. I hoped he’d have a unique view on the eldest of the Families.
But instead of answering, he asked, “What do you think they’re like?”
“I don’t know. They’re just people.” I rolled down the window and tried to ignore the exhaust fumes. “Quiet, hairy people the size of a pickup truck, but people.”
“Wait till you see them up close,” he said, indicating the dark shapes on the wall of televisions. “It’s a little harder to convince yourself that they’re just people then.”
“I might do that,” I said.
“Gellica could get you in to meet them,” he said.
“She and I aren’t really communicating right now.” Like Guyer, Gellica was another former ally whose trust I’d lost. “Now that I need friends more than ever, I seem to be losing them as fast as I ever have. Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s something else. It’s impossible to say.”
We jerked to an abrupt stop as we were cut off by a dingy white box truck, the panels on the side a slightly different sheen where an old logo had been peeled off. I snarled at Jax. “Shortcuts! You trying to kill me?”
“Right,” he said. “Impossible to say why you’re losing friends.”
At least I could always count on him.
Jax parked the Hasam and turned to me.
“That’s everything you want to talk about?”
“No. But that’s it for now.” Whatever was happening to me, it was complicated by the secrets Gellica and I shared. But her secrets weren’t mine to share. Not even with Jax.
“And you don’t want to go to anyone about this?”
“I already did. Guyer didn’t believe me, until she did, and now she thinks I’m creating chaos in my wake. Gellica knows, but . . .” I rubbed my jaw. “Like I said, the important thing is that this stays between us for right now.”
“Just for right now.”
“Absolutely.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then his eyes wrinkled, as if he was laughing at some private joke. “Let’s go follow this lead of yours. The faster we close it out, the faster we can get back to real work.”
8
WE EXITED THE HASAM AND began making our way through the crowd. I pulled a scarf from my overcoat pocket and draped it around my neck. The fog was especially thick, and the chill bit into us as we zigzagged across the blocks to get to our destination. Here at the edges of the city, the fog hit the cold air from the ice plains and froze, turning into small particles of ice that pricked my wrists and neck as they fell to the street, doomed by their own weight.
We had to badge our way in past the patrol on the fringes of the caravan’s route. Jax was particularly quick to put his replacement badge back in his pocket. I’d expected to see patrol cops, but as we got closer to the route, the security was military. The soldiers didn’t give a damn about investigations or witnesses or laws. We ended up circling around until we found another pair of patrol cops we could badge past.
“Asshole soldiers didn’t let us through,” I said.
“Screw those guys,” one of them said, indicating that we were free to pass with a jerk of his thumb.
I muttered to Jax as we walked. “The military’s making a presence in the city itself. As if we didn’t have enough trouble getting across town in an emergency. How much of a fight do you think our fine aldermen in City Hall put up over that?”
“From what I read, somewhere between the resistance of a sleeping puppy and a wet paper bag. Read the news sometime,” he said. “You’re not the only one bothered by it.”
I curled a lip. Bothered was one thing. People were bothered all the time—they just couldn’t be bothered enough to do something about it. Of course, most people didn’t have the time or money to make a difference. And the ones who did? They had every reason in the world to leave things exactly as they were.
After an infuriating walk past further checkpoints and milling pedestrians, we entered the building and climbed to the sixth floor of a seven-story walk up. The Borderlands were cold and I was glad for my overcoat, even after six flights of stairs. Our knock was answered promptly by a middle-aged human woman with tears in her eyes.
“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” She stepped back and away from the door. I moved forward but Jax, ever the stickler, asked, “Can we come in?”
She twitched her arms, a hopeless, sad gesture. “Yeah. I guess you’re gonna have to.”
We followed her inside. I recognized the layout immediately. It was standard enough for a two-room apartment. A separate bedroom and bathroom to the rear, while the common room had a countertop barely big enough for the hotplate and single-basin sink needed to legally qualify as a “kitchenette.”
“Why did you think we were on the way?” It was possible that word had gotten back to her about the murder, the arrest, and she’d made the connection.
“I called.”
“Who did you call?”
She scrunched her nose. “You.”
The woman walked to a wooden chair with one leg held together by packing tape and picked up the telephone receiver from the seat. “They’re here.”
She hung up and sat down, placing her hands over her mouth. She wore a knit cap, and hair tumbled out on either side, forming side blinders as she stared at a section of carpet a few paces in front of her.
“What, exactly,” I said, “did you call in about?”
She pressed
