Read Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman for Free Online Page A
Authors: Duncan Eagleson
time the mutie customarily left his place in the morning, so Dobbs was there extra early to make sure he didn’t miss the fucker. Dentist appointment, Dobbs mused, that’s pretty mundane for a mutie serial killer. He supposed even the Beast had to get fillings now and then, but wondered if there were something darker behind it. Have to look into the dentist. Meanwhile, he thought, keep your eyes glued to that front door.
Watchful as he was, Dobbs might have missed the bastard if it hadn’t been for the coat. It was about eight when he noticed the stylish blue trench coat. There was no doubt in his mind that the coat on the man coming out of the Arms belonged to the mutie; Dobbs had seen it too many times to mistake it. He set down his paper cup of coffee in the runabout’s drink holder and stared. The dark hair and glasses and the olive skin tone were wrong, but once he’d recognized the coat Dobbs ignored the man’s appearance and concentrated on his movements. The body language was right, he decided. It was the mutie disguised as a normal.
That had to be how he got past Evans. The mutie had gone into the jakes and changed into his normal disguise. This was getting better and better. The mutie—he had charged his drinks once, and Dobbs had discovered his name was Aguilar Cordoba, but Dobbs still thought of him as “the mutie” or just “the fucker”—headed off toward the tram station. Dobbs got out, locked the runabout, and followed.
5. WOLF
Neither Roth nor Weldt felt the need to be present, so it was just the three of us and Chief Gage who walked into the lobby of the City Administration Building, the scene of the killing of Treasurer Czernoff. Cavernous and marble-clad, two stories high, the lobby was split by a broad central stairway, with banks of elevators to either side and a security desk at the front, where a group of guardsmen clustered. Outside the thick glass doors, wide steps ran down to an open plaza. To one side of the steps lay a bloody corpse, presumably that of the treasurer. The place had already been cordoned off by the guard, essentially making the whole front of the building inaccessible from the plaza side.
The corpse lay in a pool of congealing blood, several steps down on a broad step that was virtually a landing. It was barely recognizable as human. One arm was twisted beneath it; the other, severed, lay two steps down from it. The chest was opened as if for an autopsy, white ribs gleaming amidst red and brown muscle and fat. The face had suffered several parallel slashes, exposing eyeballs, nose cartilage, and teeth. We’d seen worse, but not often. On the pavement beside the body a mark was painted in blood—three vertical slashes above a squat oval, presumably the “mark” we’d heard referred to. Investigator Auden joined us as we surveyed the scene.
“ Chief,” he said to Gage.
“ Auden,” the Chief nodded in return.
The investigator favored me with a slight head movement that, had it been allowed to live, might have grown up to be a nod. He turned back to Gage.
“ Czernoff was apparently on his way home for the night,” he said. “Perp caught him coming out of the elevator. Looks like a quick job, no sign of struggle. Man on the desk heard nothing. Tyburn came down five minutes behind Czernoff and found him this way.” His nod indicated a man in the over-robe of an Allworld priest who sat to one side of the broad stairway. The man was tall, his hair long but thinning on top, and he had a mournful look that I suspected was as much due to his customary demeanor as it was to the tragedy of the killing.
“ No witnesses? Who was on the desk?” asked Gage.
“ John Hamblin. Swears he didn’t hear a thing.”
“ Hamblin?” said Gage suspiciously.
“ Yeah, I know,” Auden sighed. “Ran a breathalyzer on him. He’s clean.”
“ And we’re sure it was the Beast?”
“ No question. Like his technique isn’t distinctive
Watchful as he was, Dobbs might have missed the bastard if it hadn’t been for the coat. It was about eight when he noticed the stylish blue trench coat. There was no doubt in his mind that the coat on the man coming out of the Arms belonged to the mutie; Dobbs had seen it too many times to mistake it. He set down his paper cup of coffee in the runabout’s drink holder and stared. The dark hair and glasses and the olive skin tone were wrong, but once he’d recognized the coat Dobbs ignored the man’s appearance and concentrated on his movements. The body language was right, he decided. It was the mutie disguised as a normal.
That had to be how he got past Evans. The mutie had gone into the jakes and changed into his normal disguise. This was getting better and better. The mutie—he had charged his drinks once, and Dobbs had discovered his name was Aguilar Cordoba, but Dobbs still thought of him as “the mutie” or just “the fucker”—headed off toward the tram station. Dobbs got out, locked the runabout, and followed.
5. WOLF
Neither Roth nor Weldt felt the need to be present, so it was just the three of us and Chief Gage who walked into the lobby of the City Administration Building, the scene of the killing of Treasurer Czernoff. Cavernous and marble-clad, two stories high, the lobby was split by a broad central stairway, with banks of elevators to either side and a security desk at the front, where a group of guardsmen clustered. Outside the thick glass doors, wide steps ran down to an open plaza. To one side of the steps lay a bloody corpse, presumably that of the treasurer. The place had already been cordoned off by the guard, essentially making the whole front of the building inaccessible from the plaza side.
The corpse lay in a pool of congealing blood, several steps down on a broad step that was virtually a landing. It was barely recognizable as human. One arm was twisted beneath it; the other, severed, lay two steps down from it. The chest was opened as if for an autopsy, white ribs gleaming amidst red and brown muscle and fat. The face had suffered several parallel slashes, exposing eyeballs, nose cartilage, and teeth. We’d seen worse, but not often. On the pavement beside the body a mark was painted in blood—three vertical slashes above a squat oval, presumably the “mark” we’d heard referred to. Investigator Auden joined us as we surveyed the scene.
“ Chief,” he said to Gage.
“ Auden,” the Chief nodded in return.
The investigator favored me with a slight head movement that, had it been allowed to live, might have grown up to be a nod. He turned back to Gage.
“ Czernoff was apparently on his way home for the night,” he said. “Perp caught him coming out of the elevator. Looks like a quick job, no sign of struggle. Man on the desk heard nothing. Tyburn came down five minutes behind Czernoff and found him this way.” His nod indicated a man in the over-robe of an Allworld priest who sat to one side of the broad stairway. The man was tall, his hair long but thinning on top, and he had a mournful look that I suspected was as much due to his customary demeanor as it was to the tragedy of the killing.
“ No witnesses? Who was on the desk?” asked Gage.
“ John Hamblin. Swears he didn’t hear a thing.”
“ Hamblin?” said Gage suspiciously.
“ Yeah, I know,” Auden sighed. “Ran a breathalyzer on him. He’s clean.”
“ And we’re sure it was the Beast?”
“ No question. Like his technique isn’t distinctive