“Step back inside,” Drakon said. I did. Even at this early hour both his glasses and his sneer were polished to an almost mirror-like finish. “Last time we worked together, you said I should trouble you at your office instead, did you not? And it seems the perfect time to do that now you seem to be making trouble for me. Sit down,” he ordered, waving a dismissive hand towards my desk.
I didn’t move. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Robin peeking through the cracked-open door. “I ran into someone last night by the harbor,” I said. “Called herself Fletcher. You know her?”
“Fletcher? And what could you have to talk about?”
“She tried to kill me, so it wasn’t much of a conversation. But,” I said, “you’re not any better. Last time I worked for you I’d have been better off hiding beneath my desk and refusing to have anything to do with it. You killed Bianca—it’s my office, I can say whatever I’d like—and now your enforcers are dying around you.” I saw the door inch closed, small deft fingers catching the latch before it could click. Robin had got the point. It was heavy-handed, and I couldn’t fault her for her curiosity. I’d done worse as a detective in more dangerous situations.
But there were some chances you didn’t get twice. The worst people I’d tangled with when I was young weren’t half as cruel as Drakon; they hadn’t learned yet the benefits of being a nightmare in the Outscape as well as outside it. “I’m sure Koshmar’s told you the rest,” I said. “You must be here for a better reason than to try and threaten me away from my investigations.”
“I know your story,” he said. “You made the wise decision to get out of Luna before they became…obsolete.” What a nice, sanitized term for killing them all and subsuming the rest, a lopsided power struggle with only one way it could ever end. “You’ve made yourself a cozy niche here—an office, a living. A niche that is only possible because of what I have done for this city.”
“You hate me.”
“We are on different sides. You have your own personal alliances and I mine. But I have not destroyed you.”
I finally allowed myself to sit down. The chair scraped another groove into my floor as I dragged it forward. “What’s this about, Drakon? This city’s a hellhole and that you rule it as a personal fiefdom makes it no better.”
“It is ordered. It is regulated. The city is my machine, Hexel, and it runs like one.” He drew out a pocketwatch and let it dangle. Its face was transparent, so that I could see the dozens of tiny gears ticking in perfect regularity, each one dependent on five others. Some were silver, some were gold, and some were a tarnished brass, a corrosion which had crept over their teeth. Then he dropped the watch. It bounced off the desk and stopped ticking. “But there is a problem now, a gear which has fallen out of place and which I cannot so easily correct. You encountered one of its limbs last night.”
I thought about the not-so-veiled threat towards Drakon—that his days were ‘numbered’. “Fletcher,” I said. “And she’s not the only one, is she? You think they killed Chesnes.”
“They call themselves Jabberwock. Dragon and Jabberwock—hah. Two mythological creatures at each other’s throats.”
“Why haven’t you destroyed them yet?”
“They make promises, promises that can capture some foolish and easily-swayed minds. They have their own drug, a thick viscous grey liquid in a little glass vial, and they promise it is even more pleasurable than our own Dragon.” He scoffed, somewhere from the back of his throat. “Smoke and lies for an acidic concoction that kills you just slowly enough not to feel it.”
“Chesnes was using it.” That small little bottle of Jabberwock was tucked into the depths of yesterday’s coat. I hadn’t known what it was, and it seemed I’d been unwittingly lucky in my decision not to try it.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
Dangerous territory again. His smile had no humor in it. “We knew,” he said. “But how deep does the rot go? How many of our own are using Jabberwock for the novelty, for the fatal thrill? At least I know you, being human, are immune to that particular draw.”
“Oh,” I said. “And here I thought this was just a friendly social visit. Maybe even an apology for having Koshmar try and break my knees backward. But you want something from me and I’m the only one you trust to get it.”
He paced back and forth. I’d set up my office to be good for pacing because sometimes the only way to clear your head was to walk, and late at night I would rather walk my own office than the dimly lit streets of the city. Fear clouded the mind and made it too hard to think. “Come on, Hexel. I think it is a disservice. Chesnes was killed with Jabberwock coursing through his veins—both you and I know what that means. And for all you’ve said, I’m still left to wonder why both you and Fletcher found yourself by the shore so very late at night. What could be so interesting?”
I stood up. “What are you implying?”
“You know exactly what. And it’ll be easier for both of us if you hand it over now.”
“What happened to me is a chance in a million,” I said. “Line up all the pieces right and it wouldn’t happen again and I’d never know this damn city existed or care one jot what went on here. You can guess. You can make stabs in the dark. But the mishap that dragged me here was just that—an accident. And I wouldn’t wish that it’d happened for anyone else.”
Drakon and I stared at one another for a moment. He knew I was lying, but he’d just fought for my alliance and couldn’t break it now. “What an impassioned speech,” he said. “Very well, then. But…” His teeth glinted. “I’ve been curious to see how you live. Why, if I were just to open this door…” Before I could stop him, his fingers closed around the door handle to my living space and he yanked it open. I didn’t know whether he’d seen Robin when he entered and simply chosen to hold it over my head, or if it was no more than suspicion, well exercised. It didn’t matter.
Robin wasn’t standing there. I dragged my heart rate back down from the ledge it’d climbed up to and moved to stand next to him. “Sorry about the mess,” I said lightly. “Wasn’t expecting visitors.” Some of it was new even to me. Several of my coats had been piled out of the wardrobe and lay crumpled on the floor, just about enough to clear out a small space inside…
A muscle twitched underneath his eye, but his expression remained frozen. “Quite the mess indeed,” he said. “You could lose anything in here and never find it.”
“I’ve got a system.”
“A system. But I wonder what in here is worth keeping.” His eyes raked over the room. He’d come here for an alliance and instead I’d solidified myself as an enemy—an an enemy I didn’t want to make.
Damn Robin! How could she be the source of so much trouble already? “What would you do,” I asked, “if you found them? This human you claim exists, who’d be the witness to Chesnes’ murder—what would they be to you? I’ve never known you to be kind, not even to the people you need.”
“It’s not a matter of kindness. Tell me, Hexel—you remember only the aftermath of the killing, do you not? Death and blood. That is not what I need—I need to know the weapon itself, I need to how it was used, what manner of creature could tear Chesnes apart like that. It is not just Jabberwock that keeps my enforcers so toothless, but fear.”
“They won’t remember that. I don’t remember that.”
“Not quite,” he said. “Those memories exist…but they are intertwined with the nightmare that you, or they, were experiencing when the Outscape took them. Retrieving them requires inducing the same nightmare—a difficult process indeed if you’re inexperienced with those drugs. Dragon could do it. Jabberwock could do it—and kill them in the same breath,” he added. “But you, alone, would never be able to get that information.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“Why would you? You’ve never wondered.” He shrugged. “It is all hypothetical. You know nothing of this human, this…child who saw what happened to Chesnes. But you would do well to remember that they are worthless to you…and I am a far less dangerous partner than Jabberwock.” He hung for a moment on that threat, waiting to see if my resolve would splinter.
It didn’t. He adjusted his jacket and stepped out onto the street. “Goodbye, Hexel.” Before he made it more than a few steps, he stopped and turned back, nudging his glasses downwards so that I caught a glimpse of his golden eyes and slitted pupils—a dragon’s eyes. “You would do well to pick a side, stop trying to play the city alone, stop interfering in my affairs. This business with Jabberwock—there is a war coming, and no one will protect you from it.”