—Detective John Finch
Short. Protective of those it needed to protect. Giving up those who were asking for it.
Cowardly. Masking death, despair, destruction.
Put it aside.
Typed, pushing the keys down hard:
EVENTS ARE MOVING BEYOND YOU. THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO. YOU’RE NOT EVEN THE CRAFTIEST BASTARDS IN THE ROOM. YOU’LL ALL GO DOWN WONDERING HOW IT HAPPENED. I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND YOU, BUT YOU’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND US, EITHER.
Felt like a child. Took that message, too, and walked back to his desk. Pondered both of them, lying there like some kind of judgment on his integrity.
A few minutes later, still thinking, the phone rang.
“Finch.” Wyte. The voice barely recognizable. As human. “You’ve got to help me.”
“When the time comes, right, Finch?” “Sure, Wyte. When the time comes.”
“Finch. Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“It’s time.”
Every memory of Wyte invincible the day before cracked into pieces. Finch’s throat tightened. The world around him spun, lost focus. Blakely hunched over his desk. To the left was a splotch of ruddy white. The windows seemed to contract.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, Wyte. Okay.”
“And, Finch, I don’t think I’m going quietly. Not like Richard Dorn.”
The voice, once so deep and gravelly, had changed since they’d first met.
Become soft and liquid, lighter yet thicker.
“Where are you?”
“At my apartment.”
“You’ll know what to do.” “I’ll know what to do.”
“I’m coming,” Finch said.
Wyte hung up.
Sat there a moment. Leaned forward a little over his desk. Elbows digging into the wood. Marshaling his strength.
You can do this. You have to do this. You promised him.
Finch raised his arm. Smashed his fist into the desk. Just to feel the pain shoot up through his shoulder. Stood. Swept everything off his desk. Made a sound almost like a roar. Almost like a moan. While Blakely and Gustat, standing now, just stared at him.
Tonsure’s bones in the little house by the underground sea. Strange stars. Falling with Bliss into darkness. Emerging into light. Heretic’s skery crawling up his leg. Sintra disappearing into darkness.
“What the fuck are you looking at?” Finch snarled. He began to break everything on the floor into pieces small enough to feed into the memory hole. Bits of pencil. Torn paper. The gaping jaw of a stapler. Shoved them into it. The hole rasped and protested.
Then tore up his report and his pathetic message. Put them both down the hole as well.
“Do you like that, Heretic? Do you?” Might have been screaming it. Didn’t care.
Blakely pulled him away, hand on his shoulder. Finch shrugged it off. Whirled on him. Looked at Blakely like he didn’t know him. Saw Blakely had his gun out. Controlled himself, arms outstretched, palms down.
“It’s okay, Blakely.” But it wasn’t okay. How much else could fall apart? What was left? “I just need some things from my desk and then I’m gone.”
The Photographer had said they’d be watching him. Now they’d have to watch him deal with Wyte.
Blakely backed away. Didn’t put down his gun. “You’re crazy, Finch,” he said. “You’re crazy.” Gustat stood there, mouth open.
Finch reached under the desk. Pulled the ceremonial scimitar in its scabbard from its hiding place.
Blakely backed even farther away. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s my sword,” Finch said. Brought the belt with the scabbard around his waist. “Never seen a sword before, Blakely?” Already had his gun. Didn’t really need anything else. Never would again.
At the door, he planned to turn and say something. What, he didn’t know. But there was nothing to say. Instead, he just pushed the filing cabinet aside.
Left Blakely and Gustat standing there, looking like two lost boys in a room suddenly grown huge.
3
Wyte’s door had a sagging “17” on it. Half shadowed, half in sunlight from the decorative stone wall running parallel to all the apartments. The blue paint had a rust-like stain running through it. An old bullet hole decorated the upper left-hand corner. A faded, torn welcome mat. Sweat and mold and the fading stench of piss. It depressed Finch. He’d only visited Wyte there a few times. Late-night drinking sessions. Bold statements about escape or joining the rebels that nobody remembered in the mornings. Commiserating with Wyte over his estranged wife. His far distant children.
Finch had taken the long route, trying to shake any watchers.
Knocked once. Twice. Gun in one hand. Sword in the other.
Nothing.
Knocked again.
Heard a sound this time. Like a voice. A voice drowning as it spoke. Awash in strange tides. Might’ve said, “Come in, Finch.”
Inside: cracked yellow wallpaper. A photo of Wyte’s wife on a rickety table. A short hallway leading to the galley-style kitchen. A couple of crooked paintings showed faded watercolor scenes of Hoegbotton ships hunting the king squid. Fables of a bygone era.
Then the living room. Almost no furniture. As if Wyte were already gone.
But he wasn’t. He lay in the corner of the living room, the weak light of an old lamp dribbling across his body. The lamp had come all the way from the Southern Isles, brought by Wyte’s grandmother. Shells were still glued into the base.
Wyte dwarfed the lamp. Slumped there. Monstrous. Huge. Spilling out in peculiar ways. As if a mossy hill had been dropped into the room. Wandering tendrils as outliers. Above, looking down at Finch, the face within the face. The tiny eyes. White against the encroaching dark. Staring out.
Who’d laid the trap for Wyte? In the beginning? He’d laid it for himself, in a sense. By falling into it.
Wyte spoke. Guttural. Wet. Dissolving. “Thanks for coming, James.” Like everything were normal. Four days ago we were tracking down Bliss.
“It’s going to be okay, Wyte.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. It’s not going to be okay. It’s not. I know that. Even if Otto doesn’t.” A gruff, coughing laugh.
“You’re among friends, Wyte.”
A kind of seismic shift from the thing in the corner. Laughter?
“It’s nice to call you James again. That might’ve been the hardest thing. Remembering to call you Finch. Or John.”
“You didn’t give me up, Wyte. I’ll never forget that.”
A shambling shrug from the mound in the corner. From the thing with Wyte’s eyes.
“Tell Emily. Tell her…”
“She knows. I know, Wyte. No one needs to be told anything.” Finch didn’t even know where Emily lived anymore.
Creature. Monster. Other.
Finch’s hands were shaking. Could he do this? Searching himself. Both Crossley and Finch. Can either of us do this? Kept thinking of Wyte behind the desk at Hoegbotton’s so long ago. Showing Finch the ropes. Patiently explaining the job.
A world extinguished as thoroughly as a spent match in the gutter.
“James?”
“Yes?”