“Absolutely fucking not.” Orczin glared pitilessly at me over the brass carriage of his typewriter. “Have you gone soft in the head, Morre? You want to put the whole precinct at risk for the sake of some idiot Metropolitan University longhair?”

I sat facing the chief-of-watch, hiding my deepening dismay and wishing for a hit of stay-awake. I had knocked on his door in the last minutes of my lonely late shift, to make the case for bringing Helina in as a critical witness. I was now sorely regretting that decision.

I hadn’t told him everything I’d learned from her. In particular, I left out her involvement in the killing of the Inspectorate informant. I tried to pitch her as a brilliant intelligence coup for Seventh Watch, an opportunity for us to break a major dissident network wide open.

Unfortunately, Orczin didn’t see it that way.

“You’re asking me to effectively shelter an enemy of the state, who – if you’re telling the truth – is connected to not one but several active Inspectorate investigations.” He eyed me with such withering disgust, you’d think I had cast obscene aspersions on his mother. A frosted glass of Novgha Reserve sat on the desk in front of him. This time, he offered me none.

“She’s the kind of inside asset we haven’t seen in years,” I protested. “She’s got connections at all levels of the organisation. She has information on the whole structure – how they recruit, how they operate. Things even the black-bands don’t know.”

“You don’t know how much they know, Morre,” Orczin snapped. “Have you forgotten what I told you after that mess at the cathedral? I recall quite specifically saying that I did not want to become better acquainted with the Inspectorate. And that was before the amended Security Act was signed. The course of action you’re suggesting would have been dangerous as hell before. Now, it’s practically suicidal.”

“The Inspectorate doesn’t need to be involved, sir,” I said. I was grasping to justify myself now, and I knew it. “Not right away, I mean. We can be selective in acting on Helina’s intel. Make it look like we found this stuff out in the course of ordinary Watch business, then leak it to the black-bands at the appropriate time. We’ll look diligent and cooperative, just in time for the Interior Ministry audit. And it’ll keep the dissidents from getting spooked and going dark. We can catch them all in one sting.”

“Watchman Morre.” Orczin’s voice was a low, dangerous growl. There was deep-buried fear behind his anger, which made it even worse. “You are openly suggesting that we withhold critical information from the Royal Inspectorate. I don’t think I need to tell you the potential penalty for that. For both of us, and possibly for the entirety of Seventh Watch.”

I wished with all my heart that I wasn’t having this conversation sober. I’d already known that this was a long shot, but I hadn’t expected it to go quite this badly. “Sir, this intelligence could save lives, Inspectorate and Watch lives. We’re dealing with stone-cold killers here. That machine-”

“If you mention that fucking machine one more time I’ll have you suspended from duty.” Orczin knocked back half of his glass of vodka in one gulp.

You know it’s real, you miserable old coward, I thought in helpless frustration. You know it’s killing people, and it’s not going to stop. “Sir, please. This might be our only chance to shut these bastards down before they do real damage. They’re planning something big. Something citywide.”

“Morre, I am only going to say this once: drop it. I gave you no authorisation to pursue this matter. The Interior Ministry is well aware of the…difficult situation in Indeleon, and they are responding accordingly. Leave the big picture to them. Do not have any further contact with that dissident. And, in future, don’t bring me your ludicrous suggestions five fucking minutes before midnight.” He nodded towards the closed door in dismissal. “I have a mountain of procurement orders still to work through. Get out, go home and leave me to my fun.”

“Sir.” I drew in my breath for one last appeal, knowing it was pointless. “The girl…she wants out, sir. She’s just a kid, and miles out of her depth. She’s afraid.”

“Then she shouldn’t have betrayed her king and countrymen for a pack of blood-drinking anarchists,” Orczin said, glowering at me like a balding gargoyle. “She can go soothe her conscience by confessing to the Inspectorate. Maybe they’ll even recruit her as a songbird, if she’s still sane when they scrape her out of the black cells.” He gestured at the door again, this time with greater impatience.

I stood up, biting back a response that would have gotten me dismissed on the spot, and obediently walked out of his office.

*

The faint sound of thunder woke me early in the morning. My eyes blinked open, seeing pale daylight filtering through the blinds. It had been a hot night, and though I’d slept soundly enough, I felt hollow and dry-mouthed.

The stay-awake and powder cocaine stashed in my nightstand were clamouring to be let out. I resisted with all of my threadbare willpower. I knew I might pay for that decision later – the familiar heavy ache was settling in my belly like coal tar – but I’d pay even more if I gave in.

My plan to help Helina defect had died on the vine. I hadn’t seen Jandra in days, and there was a strong chance that she loathed me now. Modvehl’s organisation was killing at will, and bringing the city to the cusp of open revolt. Drugging myself into oblivion woudn’t change any of that. All it would do was saddle me with a crushing comedown into the bargain.

I sat up on my elbows, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. A gentle, insistent vibration began to shake my bedroom, like the rumbling of a far-off freight train. That was when I realised the bassy growl in the distance wasn’t thunder at all.

It was engines. Big engines.

I rose out of bed and paced to the window, parting the blinds with two fingers. I looked down at the stirring streets of East Rakadev seven floors below, and then up at the cloudy morning sky.

Huge black shapes were buzzing over the rooftops, flying alarmingly low as they headed west into the city. I counted five aircraft, and I could hear at least several more further off. Their upswept wing profile was instantly familiar from a hundred televised parades and flypasts. Haelleck C-81 tiltrotors, the big ugly workhorses of the King’s Army.

But army tiltrotors were painted grey-green. Black livery meant that these were Interior Ministry birds. The Inspectorate were getting reinforced, and in serious numbers. Some of the passing tiltrotors were even carrying armoured vehicles, drone haulers or personnel carriers, secured in dangling slings beneath their bellies. Drones followed each of them in tight V-formation swarms, like oddly regimented insects.

This level of force could mean only one thing. Some very important people were getting scared. The kind of people whose fear could only be assuaged by a great deal of blood.

The tiltrotors were still thundering overhead when I went down to street level for my breakfast. All along the pavement, I saw pedestrians staring up at the busy sky with expressions of uneasy contempt. There were none of the choreographed cheers and salutes that always greeted the flypasts on TV. Mothers clung tightly to their children’s hands, hurrying them along to stop them rubbernecking. Old men smoking on the corners muttered and spat as they watched the black machines roar across the sky.

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The traffic was heavier than usual on my drive into the city. I soon found out why – there were new checkpoints every mile, some still in the process of being constructed. The closer I got to the centre, the heavier the security presence became. On the westbound carriageway, prefab inspection booths had been set up behind thickets of barbed wire and spiked tank traps. Interior Ministry troops in full combat gear kept watch over the queuing traffic with the grim, joyless expressions of true professionals. The drones were everywhere, zipping back and forth in a cacophony of rotors, sometimes dropping down low enough to point their cameras through individual windshields. Further up, amid the drifting morning smog, the C-81s kept coming.

I thought of Helina, teary-eyed with fear and guilt in her book-strewn little room. I could only imagine how terrified she must be now, watching the jaws of the state close around Indeleon.

There was nothing I could do for her now. She might evade the king’s justice for a few more days, but sooner or later, her time would come. Even with the venator on their side, her dissident friends couldn’t slice through a whole army.

Could they?

I noticed something else as I struggled through the grinding traffic to Seventh Watch. The terribly familiar graffiti was gone from several alleys and overpasses. At one point, I passed a team of workmen in Municipality overalls, scrubbing away methodically at a concrete bridge pillar. They had already wiped away half of the message there, leaving only the words COMING DOWN.

Half a mile further on, I saw another work team smoothing an immense poster into place on an emporium wall. The poster showed a line of Inspectorate men smartly arrayed in front of a stylised Indeleon skyline. A fleet of drones was depicted above the tower-tops, their searchlight beams carving the monochrome sky.

THE INSPECTORATE IS WATCHING, the poster proclaimed in harsh red letters. LOYAL CITIZENS HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR.

*

I was nearly half an hour late for the morning shift, cursing as I hurried from the motor pool into the precinct building. My whole body was itching for stay-awake, for something to dull the hard edge and silence the ever-present fear. I dug my fingernails into my palms and said a quick prayer under my breath.

I found the bullpen busy, but oddly quiet. Nobody so much as commented on my lateness. Everyone was at their desks, heads down over their paperwork, in the fashion of men trying hard not to get noticed. Cherdane wasn’t playing his terrible music this morning; the only radio noise came from the dispatch office. I couldn’t see Jandra anywhere, though I supposed she might still have been held up in the traffic.

I was signing my name into the roster book when three men stepped out of Orczin’s office. I immediately realised why everyone was being so quiet. The first of them was Koniel, the chief of Ninth Watch, with his thick-rimmed spectacles and fastidious little beard. The other two were Inspectorate men in full uniform. One of them had a lieutenant’s stripes, and carried a leatherbound folder bearing the king’s seal. It took me a second to register his rodent-like features. My heart sank even further.

Koniel strode past me towards the main doors without giving me a second look, but Aikerl paused. Recognition flashed in his eyes. “Ah. The brave watchman from Itan Lake,” he said, with a thoroughly unlikeable smirk. “Morre, wasn’t it? Our paths cross again.”

“Lieutenant Aikerl.” I tried not to give away any sign of my growing alarm. Do they already know about Helina? Was I spotted at the university? “What brings the Inspectorate to our humble precinct today?”

“Not your concern, watchman,” the other black-band interjected sharply.

“A friendly liaison visit,” Aikerl elaborated. “Ensuring smooth cooperation between our two organisations. You’ll know more when you need to know more.”

“I’ll wait with bated breath,” I told him.

His unsettling smirk widened into a still more unsettling grin. “Not long to wait. Try to keep yourself sober, this time.” With that, he and his colleague strode off through the main doors, followed by the silent, resentful eyes of every watchman in the bullpen.

Cherdane waited until the doors had swung shut behind the Inspectorate men before turning on his portable radio. Even then, he kept the volume low.

“Morre, you know that rat-faced bastard?” Geisden muttered to me, as I walked to my desk. I was aware of several of the others giving me sidelong looks.

“Unfortunately, yes,” I replied. “I had a run-in with him a few weeks ago.”

“Can’t hurt to have a friend in the Inspectorate,” Lokh opined.

“That one’s no friend to anybody. Least of all me.” I sat down heavily and looked at the messy stack of paperwork in my in-tray. Witness statements and arrest reports that all now seemed utterly trivial. “Why was Koniel here? Is Ninth Watch trying to rope us into their business again?”

“Almost certainly,” Lokh said. He lowered his voice, glancing between Geisden and I conspiratorially. “They lost two men in the cathedral ruins last night. Sniped while on patrol. It seems the gangs have gotten their hands on military rifles now.”

And I think I know who supplied them, I thought. “Fuck. That’s gonna get them more than a slap on the wrist. Koniel must be pushing for a full clearance operation.”

Lokh nodded grimly. “I think he’ll get what he wants. The troops that flew in today are urban-warfare specialists. Rumour has it the Interior Ministry wants the gangs wiped out for good.”

“About time,” Geisden grunted. “They should have nerve-gassed the whole area years back, if you ask me. It worked in Mar-Ilhande.”

I was about to reply when Jandra walked into the bullpen. She looked drained, and even paler and skinnier than before. Her hair looked like she’d combed it in the car. Her uniform, which she usually kept well-ironed, was badly creased. She spotted me, and we made eye contact for just a moment. I couldn’t read any emotion there, aside from exhaustion.

She signed herself in and headed for the locker room, without saying a word to anyone.

I got up from my desk and went after her. It was pure impulse, and I knew how it would look to the rest of the precinct, but I didn’t care. Maybe things between us were unsalvageable; as her partner and her lover, I needed to know. I deserved to know.

I found her by the sinks, straightening her uniform in the mirror. Thankfully, we had the locker room to ourselves. She didn’t acknowledge me at first. I watched her adjust her collar with stiff, tense fingers. Suppressing tremors, I was sure. At least that meant she hadn’t dosed up today.

“Jandra,” I said tentatively. I remembered the half-hearted cover story I’d asked Erkasri to pass on to her. I was quite certain she hadn’t believed it. “Look…I’m sorry I swapped out the afternoon shift yesterday. I had to deal with the nursing home. It took bloody hours. Mum’s not been doing so well, her confusion’s getting worse, and-”

She turned around to face me. I was expecting fury in her expression, even bitter hate. Three years of friendship – friendship that had turned into something very close to love – soured and lost forever.

Instead, I saw something curious in her tired eyes. A searching, expectant look; judging, but not quite condemning.

“Listen to me,” she said, softly but insistently. “Just listen, Evaris. Please.”

I had the good sense to shut my mouth.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said on the way to Martyr Ostande.” There was real, if brittle, determination in Jandra’s voice. “I was angry that night. I still am. Angry and fucking scared. Everything that’s been going on, all the Ministry troops showing up today…I don’t think I even recognise Indeleon any more.”

Neither do I, I thought. And it’s only going to get worse.

“I know you’ve been trying to protect me. That’s part of the reason I got so mad. I’m not some stray in need of shelter.” Her expression dared me to contradict her. “And I never asked for your protection. The things I know, the things I’ve done, they’re for me to bear. You carry your burdens, I carry mine.”

Those were easy words to say and hard words to live by. I didn’t tell her so. I didn’t want to smother this glimmer of a reconciliation. I waited for her to continue.

“But, look,” she said. She put her hand lightly on mine. It was good to feel her touch again. “What you said in the cruiser, that you’d pour out our stay-awake – did you mean it? If I come off it, will you also?”

“Yes,” I said. I was genuinely proud of myself for not hesitating. The chemical yearning was still in my guts, idiotically insistent, like a cat yowling for its supper. I wasn’t going to let it control me. “Yes, of course. I should’ve poured it out months ago. We can keep each other honest, just like I said. Quitting together will be a hell of a lot easier than doing it alone.”

The prospect of going cold turkey off stay-awake was more than a little daunting. I hadn’t gone more than a couple weeks at a time without it in all my years in Seventh Watch. But fear was no reason not to try. And wasn’t the one good thing in my life worth the sacrifice?

“When I don’t have it, I miss it. And I know I shouldn’t,” Jandra admitted. “I know there’s a point of no return. Some nights, I worry I’ve already reached it.”

“You haven’t, Jand,” I told her firmly. “I was a fucking idiot to introduce you to it in the first place. If you won’t let me protect you, at least let me make that right.”

Jandra shook her head. “I’m not a child, Evaris. You didn’t force me to take it. I was the one who let it become normal.” She looked me straight in the eye, unblinking. “I don’t want to end up like Remkou. And I don’t want you to, either. If this city is gonna be the death of us, I want to go down sober and fighting.”

Despite everything, I smiled at that. She was beginning to sound almost like her old self again. For a brief, bright moment, nothing else mattered in the slightest. “Indeleon’s tried to kill me a dozen times,” I said. “It hasn’t managed it yet. I might just be unkillable.”

Jandra returned my smile, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. Her fingers were sweaty and trembling, but I didn’t mind. “Always overconfident.”

She was beautiful when she smiled, my Jandra.