Bosun stopped suddenly, turned back to look at them from just inside a doorway.
Wyte ran into Finch before he could stop himself. Lulled by the stilted rhythm of their progress. Finch just able to stop falling.
“What? Are we there already?” Wyte asked, peering over Finch’s shoulder. Could feel his breath, hot and thick.
Bosun smiled. A thin smile. Nothing humorous about it.
They stood precariously outside the doorway, on a tiny deck, backs to a cabin wall. A trough of water lapping between boats. A heron croaking through the slate-gray sky.
“Toss your guns,” Bosun said.
“Why should we?” Wyte asked.
“No guns allowed with Stark.”
“Too bad,” Wyte said.
Bosun said, “Drop them in the water. Or I’ll leave you here.”
Framed by the doorway, gray water shadows leaking all over him, Bosun didn’t look human. Didn’t look real. Seemed to be receding from them while all around the sounds of the Spit became stronger. Like a drumbeat that faded in one place, picked up with a different tempo in another.
Wyte said, “Again, why the fuck should we do that?”
“Because,” Finch said, “we don’t know where we are.” And if he’d wanted to kill us, he’d have done it already.
Bosun’s smile widened while Wyte cursed, said, “Do you know who we work for?”
We work for monsters. We work for ourselves.
As if in a dream, Finch watched himself toss his gun into the water. It entered like a diver, headfirst. The water parted for it. Disappeared without a splash. A kind of relief came over him. A kind of acceptance. The gun had been nothing but trouble. The gun had always caused problems.
Wyte gave Finch a look of betrayal. Hesitated. Bosun receded farther. Wyte could shoot Bosun. Then they’d be lost, in hostile territory. Or Wyte could miss and Bosun would be gone anyway. Or Wyte could get rid of his gun and Bosun would leave them. But Finch didn’t think that would happen.
He tugged the gun from Wyte’s reluctant hands. Threw it in the water as Wyte muttered, “A mistake, Finch. A mistake.”
Finch demanded it of Bosun: “Stark.”
“Stark,” Bosun said, nodding.
Then Bosun was just a wide back again, a kind of door himself. Leading them somewhere dangerous.
* * *
But a few minutes later, Bosun stopped again. This time inside an old tugboat. Finch right there beside him, back sore from stooping. Wyte behind them, still in the last, much larger boat. Exuding a muddled aura of defeat.
Then he was gone. Finch could sense it. Wyte there, behind him. Then not. A kind of wind or impact punching the air. A muffled shout. Cut off. Finch turned and saw just the outline of doorways receding in a ragged infinite number back the way they’d come. Nothing but shadow otherwise. Whirled around to Bosun, deck rising and falling beneath his feet.
Bosun stood there. Arms folded, watching.
Finch fought the urge to close the distance. To hurt Bosun. Fought it. Knew that self-control would save his life. Maybe save Wyte’s life. Knew now, too, that Stark didn’t give a shit about gray cap retaliation. Didn’t care that Heretic would be after him if he snuffed out two detectives.
“Where’s my partner? Where are you taking him?” Tried to keep his voice level.
If you hurt him …
Bosun shrugged, said, “Doesn’t want to see him. Just you. Wyte’s not safe. We don’t know where he’s been. You’ll see him later. Take off your shoes.”
“Take off my shoes?” It was unexpected enough to make Finch forget Wyte for a moment.
“Shoes and socks. Need to see your feet. That going to be a problem?”
“Why the fuck would I care about my shoes after giving up my gun?”
Over the side went Finch’s shoes and socks. Stood there, hopping, as he showed Bosun the bottom of first one foot, then the other. Wondering where this would end. Furious, worried, scared.
Another part of him looked down from a great height, puzzled. When did being a detective mean this? He was investigating a double murder. He was working for an occupying force that could make Stark disappear in a burst of dandelion-like spores. And he didn’t have his shoes. He didn’t have his socks. He didn’t have his gun.
“Are we done?” Finch asked. “Is this almost over?”
Impassive bullet of a head swiveling toward Finch. Dark eyes glinting. “Turn out your pockets.”
“Why?”
Bosun pulled out his gun. “No good reason.”
Finch raised his left arm, palm up. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
There was a lot more than he’d thought. A copy of the photo of the murder victim. A folded up note from Sintra, the first and almost only thing she’d ever written to him. Dear Finch—I made you coffee. Thanks for a great night. Love, S. His current identity papers. A few semi-worthless paper bills from before the Rising. A strange coin, notched along the edges, that he’d kept for luck. A scrap of paper with nonsense words written on it, an odd symbol on the back.
In the end, Bosun returned all of it to him.
“Worthless.”
But he’d lingered on the scrap of paper. Far longer than necessary to read it.
3
Thirty minutes? Longer? Finch lost count of the doors. Lost count or didn’t care. His back throbbed from hunching over. From crawling, then climbing, Bosun’s form always ahead of him. They were in the heart of the Spit now. Bigger boats—almost ships—lay near the center, places where you could forget you were on the water. Masts rose up like barren trees. Warrens of rooms, through which Bosun walked sure-footed, never losing his bearings.
Passed through a bar of sorts, with homemade booze in reused bottles. Women flirted with dull, rumpled men with beards and strange black hats. A few loners with a calculated threadbare appearance. Beyond the bar, the sound of spirited bartering in back rooms for black market goods. Selling guns, food, maybe even information.
Where was Wyte now? How far behind or ahead? Still alive, or thrown over the side to follow their guns? Began to wonder if Wyte would wind up like Bliss or like Bliss’s men. Nailed to a wall? Bleeding fungal blood?
Even stranger ideas began to enter his head. That Rath in her basement, doling out information, was someone he’d made up out of convenience. That Sintra had no mysterious life beyond his own. That he’d written the words on the scrap of paper pried from the dead man’s hands. That the soreness around his neck came not from the skery but from sleeping in the wrong position. That he would wake up to find Sintra was his wife. The gray caps had never Risen. He still worked for Hoegbotton & Sons as a courier, but Wyte was an obedient wire-haired terrier he’d bought for Sintra. There was no Spit. No bay. No towers.
Instead, they reached Stark’s headquarters: through one last doorway, hinges splinters of wood, the door missing. Ripped apart? How long ago?
Bosun straightened up, Finch beside him. Stepped into a room aboard some kind of ferry. Passenger seats stripped out leaving the metal skeletons of chairs. The high, curving ceiling showed in faded paint a scene from an opera, people in balcony seats applauding. Below that hung a chandelier from which almost all the glass was gone.
A long wide space stretched out before them. Like a dance floor. Timbers stained with dark red swirls and smudges. The soft smell of soap couldn’t dull the sharp assault of the blood.