“I ain’t seen nuffink like you pair in all my born days,” continued the officer, now twirling his baton on a rope handle. “Blooming great man-boots up past yer knees. And wot, pray tell, is that rigout around yer neck? Perhaps you is some class of savage, or European? Am I right, ladies?”
Vallicose prodded her partner with an elbow.
Answer the man, said the prod. Tell him something believable.
Nothing but puffed air came from Witmeyer’s mouth, and she seemed to be following the flight of an invisible bird with her eyes.
“Nevertheless, foreign or no,” continued the bluebottle, “I am intreeegued, as they say.”
The policeman’s eyes suddenly fixed on Vallicose’s sidearm. “And would that be some class of weapon a-hanging from your belt, madam? If so, I best be confiscating it and doing a thorough search of your person.”
Vallicose allowed herself to be briefly amazed that a man wielding nothing more than a wooden stick could be faced with two hulking adversaries loaded down with firearms and still think himself with the advantage. Then she hugged the constable close, as one would a friend, and punched him solidly in the solar plexus.
“No searching today, Citizen,” she said quietly, escorting the gasping copper around a corner into the darkness of an alley, where she slid him along a dripping wall into the embrace of creeping damp and shadows.
It was a laughably simple conquest of a foe who barely rated the appellation, but though the maneuver had not cost Vallicose more than a single grunt of effort, she had paid in another way.
When she stepped back into the light, Chevron Savano had disappeared.
Vallicose swore and thumped her partner’s chest.
“Damnation, Sister. Words and such are your forté.”
The thump restarted Witmeyer’s brain. “Forté?” she said. “French, is it? You’re spouting French at me?”
Vallicose was shocked at herself. “I apologize, Sister. Such blasphemy is uncalled for, but the girl has gone.”
Lunka Witmeyer’s marbles were settling quickly. “Not gone, Sister. Out of our sight is all she is, and to disappear so quickly she must have taken the next crossroads.”
Vallicose nodded. This was the partner she knew.
“Yes, yes. But left or right is the question.”
Witmeyer set off at a run. “Let us cross that road when we come to it.”
They came to it quickly and were on the point of splitting up when an explosion sent shudders along the street, and a cloud of thick black smoke drifted out from the eaves of a distant building.
“What are the chances?” said Witmeyer, with her nose pointed in that direction.
“Praise be, it’s a sign, Sister,” said Vallicose, already planning how she would hurt Chevron Savano.
There was a crowd of gawpers and gawkers assembled by the doors of the Orient Theatre, and the Thundercats shouldered through the throng as though their authority held good in this time. Once past the door, they settled comfortably into their combat routine. Vallicose first and low, Witmeyer upright behind, so any opponent would meet double fire. There was no illumination in the interior, but light flooded from the foyer, daubing a pale glow along the aisle. It was obvious that the explosion had done most of its damage on the stage, which had mushroomed upward in a tangle of planks. There were bodies in the stalls. Gunshot victims, tossed backward by the force of the projectiles that killed them.
Witmeyer placed her fingers in a row of bullet holes in a backrest.
“Either there were a hundred shooters…”
“Or we have ourselves automatic fire,” completed Vallicose.
A puzzling development for the Thundercats, as they had assumed themselves to be the only ones with such arms.
“Savano?” wondered Vallicose.
“No. She was supervised all the way from her bed and was unarmed. But this must be connected to Smart’s machine.”
“Smart’s Boxless machine,” said Vallicose.
“Boxless, of course,” muttered Witmeyer, the comment a sign that her wits had reasserted themselves; and for once Vallicose was comforted by her partner’s acerbic tongue.
They advanced quickly, every sense alert for danger. A huge body in row C proved to be slightly less dead than supposed and begged for water in the name of God. In spite of the fact that God had been invoked, Vallicose shot him in the chest.
“Clover,” said Witmeyer, her tone disapproving.
“He was taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
“I don’t mind that you killed the brute,” said Witmeyer. “You could have clubbed him. Our supply of bullets is limited. Also, it might have been an idea to question the man. He may have seen Savano.”
“Two good points, Sister. From now on, bare hands or blades when possible, and only after interrogation.”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
A moan emanated from the pit before them, boomified by the space. It echoed to the rafters, and others would have fled in terror, crying ghost, but not the Thundercats, who had heard the cries of the injured in eerier settings than this.
The partners chuckled, knowing they were unperturbed where others would not be.
“Remember, Sister, when that Jax butcher charged us with a cleaver?”
“I remember he regretted it,” said Witmeyer. And they were silent for a brief moment, savoring the memory.
Another moan rose from the orchestra pit, and the Thundercats crept soundlessly to the lip and peered over. A man lay tangled among the music stands with blood trickling from various minor wounds and one of his arms stretched a little farther than seemed normal.
“It’s possible that he will live,” said Witmeyer.
“Possible, but unlikely,” said Clover Vallicose.
The man had committed no specific crime against Box or Empire that Vallicose was aware of, but she felt certain that a little interrogation would reveal some misdemeanor. And anyway, the first unofficial rule of security policing was that corpses were the worst kind of witness. Dead men do not talk.
Vallicose swung herself down into the pit, landing neatly astride the unfortunate individual who was about to be seriously hurt as a prelude to being mortally injured.
If this man can point us in the traitor’s direction, I might kill him without prolonged torture, thought Vallicose charitably.
“Let’s be having you, Citizen,” she said, hauling the man onto his back by dragging on his dislocated shoulder. The pain must have been unimaginable. The man confirmed this by screaming high and jagged.
Vallicose had a plan. She would ask her questions with her weapon pointed directly at the citizen’s head. This was one of her preferred interrogation tactics, but, as she had learned one messy morning in Police Plaza interview room B, best to always make sure the gun’s safety is on.
Vallicose checked the safety and then frowned as her eyes drifted to the man’s features.
There was something strange about the face.
Clover felt her balance drift away, and her pulse pounded in her ears.
What is it about this person? Something familiar.
The man beneath her coughed and sprayed blood on Vallicose’s coat. An action that would have normally earned him an open-handed slap. But Clover did not strike.
Why?
Because there was something about that bloodstained face. Familiar, but more than that. Revered? Was that possible?
Vallicose felt her hands shake.
What is it? Who is this?
Witmeyer’s whisper floated down from above.
“Problems, Sister?”
“N—no,” stammered Vallicose.
Stammering? she thought. I haven’t stammered in decades.
“Well then, the trail grows cold.”
The man’s nose was thin and hooked. Di
stinctive. And it slotted into a face in her memory.
It was so dark down here. Like the great pit itself.
“A light, Sister,” she called to her partner. “Shine a light.”
Witmeyer shifted for a better angle and then flicked the switch of a tiny halogen flashlight attached to her gun barrel. The man’s face was illuminated starkly, and Vallicose felt her face slacken with shock.