City of Corpses Page 9

  Yumiko started heading downstairs. The signals were definitely coming from some vault below the dog kennels.

  On the next floor she ran into Blud, the youth who had first seen her at the door on her first day. He was pacing the corridors with a lantern. “You are not supposed to be out of bed…” His eyes were magnetized to her diaphanous nightgown.

  “It’s just me!” she said. She was trying to look seductive while trying to look like she was not trying. Anjana had coached her through practicing expressions in the mirror meant to show a sleepy heat in the eyes and an inviting softness in the lips; Xana had taught her how to stand and cock her hips. It was a difficult trick because it was the opposite of what Yumiko did when she meditated: she was trying to chain herself to desire, to become part of the deception of the world.

  After seeing how modestly Gilberec and Matthias Moth refused to stare at half-dressed girls, Yumiko decided it was the sort of trick that only works on men who want it to work on them. But fortunately Blud (so Iele had confided in their gossip) had never recovered from the sight of seeing Yumiko so scantily dressed that first day, so apparently he wanted it to work.

  He swallowed. “You know, I know who you are, Miss You Know Me. It’s after curfew.”

  She said, “I couldn’t sleep. I needed a drink, and I thought I could… I mean that you and I could… have a nightcap…”

  Because, of course, if they broke the rules together, neither would dare report it.

  She saw on his face he was about to refuse, so she shyly touched him on the arm, a silent plea. It was like magic. The coolness in his eyes grew warm. It was like a spark falling into the dry pine leaves of winter. A grin escaped him.

  So he helped her to sneak into the bar, to disconnect the electric alarm, and to help themselves. She told him a little of her past as a Manchu princess and Japanese spy, and he took a few stiff drinks he should have been too young to enjoy. His cheeks grew red, and he grew bold and boastful and was actually sort of fun to talk to.

  It turned out Blud was a handyman who helped out with the electronics of the club’s communication system, the microphones in the neckties, and the special shielded phone lines running to Wilcolac’s office. Yumiko was a little surprised to find herself drawn into the conversation. She found she did not have to fake her smile.

  “Show me how you did that!” she cooed. “To the alarm, I mean.”

  “Most girls don’t care about this stuff. How it works after you flip the switch.”

  “It is magic,” said Yumiko, watching him work and making sure to crowd herself up against his back as she looked over his shoulder. “Honest magic. What is a radio but ventriloquism made real? What is a light bulb but a lamp holding a genii named electric current? And what is current but tamed lightning?” He turned, and she looked up at him with shy admiration. “And you are the lightning tamer!”

  That made him grin. She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. She could feel his gaze on her as she walked away, hips swaying.

  Around the corner, she sagged against the wall, scowling at the pangs of guilt in her heart. Even the little bit she had drunk made her lightheaded, and she was angry with herself. She told herself her fiancée would understand what she had to do to save him.

  But here before her was the back stairway leading down into the basement. Time was short and the opportunity narrow. She decided to fret later.

  There was an alarm connecting the latch to the doorframe, which she carefully disconnected, using the tiny screwdriver she had pickpocketed from Blud during their parting kiss. She imitated what he had done to disconnect the alarm without triggering it. Her fingers were sure and swift, as if this were something she had done many times before.

  3. Second Vault: Kennels

  The ground level was dark except for a glowing green sign over the door to the stairwell. Here were cars parked belonging to the club. The cars of guests were parked by valets in another building: this garage was off-limits to the public and, indeed, to the staff, except when ordered here. A Peach Cobbler Girl found wandering here after curfew would be fired. Or worse.

  A metal overhead door, like a garage door but larger, led to the truck bay and alley behind the club. It was now lowered and locked.

  Opposite this door was a second overhead door at the top of a curving concrete ramp leading downward. The door was raised at the moment, which Yumiko thought odd. She sniffed. The musky smell of many hounds cloistered together was coming from below.

  Yumiko crept down the ramp silently, making no more noise than a cat. The ramp curved in a half circle down to a lower entrance to the second vault, which was not blocked by any door.

  To the right were shelves of dog food in cans and bags, jugs of water, collars and chains, protective ballistic K-9 vests, and assorted veterinary supplies. To the left were two rows of kennel cages, stacked atop each other. The cages for the two dogs currently on duty were hanging open. The other ten cages were locked and the huge dogs asleep.

  To one side was a Dutch door leading into the room, or, rather, cubbyhole, where the kennel master kept a desk and filing cabinet. Yumiko remembered Elfine telling her how the daylit men liked to have everything written down.

  To the other side was a door leading to a utility room which Yumiko, as the new girl, had visited many times. Here were the washing machines for hotel staff uniforms and the basins for hand-washing the Peach Cobbler Girl uniforms. A great cloth-sided bin stood underneath the laundry chute in the ceiling.

  Between the two was a wide concrete floor, large enough for a vehicle to pass without touching either equipment racks or kennel cages.

  In front of her was the door she had noticed before: a large overhead door marked OUT OF SERVICE, but with every sign of recent and repeated use. There was a smaller man-sized service door build into the larger metal door, like a postern in a gate. This postern door was made of metal slats just as the larger overhead door it pierced so that it could be raised with the larger door of which it was a part, but it also could open and shut independently when the overhead door was lowered.

  Yumiko began walking with soft, slow, noiseless footfalls across the wide concrete space. Had she known that it was nearly impossible to walk through a kennel without waking sleeping dogs, she might not have attempted it; but since she had no memory to tell her otherwise, she crossed with a slow, careful, and calm confidence.

  One or two of the sleeping hounds stirred in their sleep, or their nostrils twitched, but perhaps because they smelled no fear and instead smelled the scent of one who had taken pains to pet and pamper them, their twitches ceased, and they fell more deeply into canine slumber.

  The floor was cold on her bare feet.

  When she was within a yard of the postern door, she noticed that the lock was turned. It was not locked. That made her suddenly nervous.

  She heard a small noise from beyond the door: an instinct told her to hide.

  She did not doubt her instincts. Yumiko did a cartwheel into the utility room, grabbing the lintel of the door with her heels as she flung her body spinning into the smaller room, and swinging herself up into the exposed beams of the ceiling from which neon lights, now dark, depended. There she clung, above the lights, motionless, barely daring to breathe.

  She heard the postern door open and then heard the rapid footfalls of a man’s booted feet. He took three quick steps and paused. He must have picked up on some inaudible clue or scent because now she heard his footfalls approaching. He stuck his head into the utility room and switched on the lights. In her position above the lights, with the bright glare shining downward, the man was actually less likely to see her than had he left the lights off.

  He was tall and broad shouldered, great in neck, bicep, and chest, but with a slender waist and graceful step. He wore a black leather jacket. His hook-nosed and high cheeked features were as harsh and brutal as if they had been carved of hard wood with sharp blows of an ax. His hair was long and straight, and he wore a
n owl feather braided in it. This was once of the bouncers, named Kuckunniwi, whom everyone simply called The Cheyenne. Everyone feared him.

  He glanced left and right at the laundry bins beneath the chute and then at the industrial-sized washers and driers. His demeanor was restless, like that of a man pressed for time. She noticed that her long and flimsy nightgown was dangling down from her legs, and the hem was almost brushing the top of his head. She dared not shift her weight to free a hand and dared not try to draw up the dangling fabric, lest she make a noise.

  But he was indeed pressed for time. He was blinking, but he did not even wait for his eyes to adjust to the light. Nor did he step into the utility room. Instead, with a growl of impatience, he snapped off the light and rushed back out.

  She heard him retreat up the ramp at a quiet jog. The dogs were evidently used to his smell also, for none woke.

  Yumiko slipped to the floor, frowning. She silently scolded herself as a fool. Why had she assumed she could sneak and spy in a nightgown? The danger of being spotted as Foxmaiden clearly was the lesser danger.

  She shucked off the nightgown and tossed it in the bin marked for hand-wash only. Her suit seemed almost to jump out of the hidden compartment of the sash of its own accord. She slithered into it as quickly as a firefighter into his suit and flicked her fingers along the seams so that the leathery fabric tightened like a second skin. A flick of her wrist turned the sash into a half cape which clipped to her shoulders. The utility belt, harness, and weapons seemed eager to fit snugly into place. She donned the mask. The lenses automatically dialed themselves to a light-amplification setting, and now she was in a world of green-hued but clear shadows. She removed the glove and ring beneath and replaced them so that the Ring of Mists was now atop the fabric and could be twisted easily.

  She made herself weightless, glorying in the sensation, and shot like a dark rocket across the space between the utility room and the postern door, which the Cheyenne had thoughtlessly left open.

  4. Third Vault: Cold Storage

  Beneath her was another semicircular ramp leading down. She kicked off the wall and traveled in a rapid glide across the downward slanting ceiling, touching the ceiling occasionally with glove or boot to propel and aim her slender body on its way.

  The ramp opened up into another kennel. This one was empty, but the bars of the cages had been gnawed and clawed by something able to leave tooth marks and claw marks in inch-thick bars of solid steel. The canine smell was overpowering. Unlike the room above, there were not a dozen cages here, but scores, perhaps hundreds, stacked to the ceiling and four ranks deep. Half were piled to one side, and they were dirty with bits of straw and torn bedding, and they smelled foul. The other half were cleaned and smelled of disinfectant.

  Dominating the room was one vast cage. It was large enough to hold the crocodile-headed, lion-pawed, hippopotamus-shaped chimera she had last seen young Sir Gilberec chasing along the bottom of the Hudson River, the one that swallowed dead werewolves and resurrected them from the dead. It was not back. A circus smell issued from that cage, and it had not been mucked out lately. Bags of fodder and chest freezers were along the wall behind the big cage. Apparently, a monster with a crocodile mouth, a lion throat, and a hippopotamus belly ate both meat and hay.

  Also like the chamber above, there were two man-sized doors opening to the right and left and a second truck-sized overhead door dominating the wall between. As above, there was a wide lane of space for a vehicle to pass. Two forklifts were parked here, one to either side of the ramp down which she had come. Evidently, these were used to move the cages up to the loading dock on the surface level.

  Lithe as an eel, she swarmed along the ceiling, and dove into the right-hand door. Inside she found a desk. Many small boxes holding files were crowded against three walls. There was no computer, no phone. She looked at the papers on the desk and discovered that her light amplification goggles could not help her when there was no light to amplify. Nor did infrared allow her to read pen marks on the paper since neither was warmer than the other. She drew her flashlight and flicked it on. In the narrow, powerful beam, she skimmed the papers rapidly.

  These were invoices tracking the shipment of some good never mentioned by name. The notes for each shipment listed the pounds of human flesh and gallons of human blood consumed by each line item. The invoice material also noted how long each line item was in the cage and its weight, teeth and eye color, and general health both at the full moon and at the dark moon. That told her what was being shipped.

  And there was marked how many empty cages were to be shipped on which dates to a place marked LIs and how many full cages were expected back; and likewise how many full cages were to be shipped to a place marked CoC and how many empties were expected back. The dates did not match up: there was a three-day layover period while the cages were kept here, and this was marked R PROC.

  She guessed PROC referred to some sort of process, something that had to be done here, by Wilcolac the magician, before the caged monsters were shipped elsewhere. She recalled Elfine telling her that daylit men could not see werewolves or other monsters unless they wore red caps. Could R stand for Redcap?

  She saw where each invoice listed funds due. It was listed in ounces, and the figures were high. If this were ounces of gold, then Wilcolac Cobweb enjoyed a very healthy income indeed.

  Then she came across a short handwritten note: Estimate from Empousa. She says once we have 1,000 at the City of Corpses, the performance can begin. Check Thursday.

  That might have been a day of the week, but she doubted it. CoC was an abbreviation for City of Corpses. Could it be the name of a ship? A haunted capital hidden somewhere beyond mortal eyes? In any case, it was the destination of the shipments. It was where the werewolves were bound. Evidently, they meant to gather a thousand of them together in that spot. For what purpose? What performance.

  Then what was LIs? Could it be short for Elizabeth? Or a plural of the Roman numeral fifty-one?

  Time was short. At any moment, upstairs, one of the girls with whom she shared a bed might turn over or wake up and notice Yumiko was missing. There was no time to read even the papers on the desk, much less all the boxes of files marked with ranges of months and years.

  She unscrewed the bottom of the desk lamp, inserted a bugging device in the base, and replaced it.

  That prompted her next thought. Yumiko turned on her receivers. Immediately, the beeping in her ears showed that the two tracers she had placed on Whelan and Phelan were close at hand and on this level.

  In a series of long, swift, weightless leaps, she followed the signal across the wide garage to the opposite door, which was closed. It was a metal door with a heavy latch. She opened it. Within was a walk-in refrigerator. A waft of cold struck her. A vile smell assailed her nostrils.

  Her brilliant, narrow flashlight beam lanced out. Yumiko discovered that she was a girl of strong constitution because her gorge did not rise at the sight, but her eyes beneath her mask narrowed. To one side of the freezer, hanging on meathooks, were corpses of huge canines that had been flayed. She saw clear plastic packages filled with brown on a shelf near them. To the other side were human corpses on hooks, also flayed, so that the muscles, veins, and bones were visible. Coats of pale leather, empty human skins, were hanging on hooks to one side. In the middle of the freezer was a rack or table with clamps to hold man or beast immobile. Scalpels, knives, and blades, curved or straight, serrated or smooth, were arranged neatly in boxes on tables or hanging in rows. There was a mass of flesh and red fat gathered in the mouths of several large drains puncturing the floor.

  The tracers were in this room. She picked up a large knife from the flaying rack and poked at the mess gathered in the drains. The magnetic disks of her tracers found the metal blade and clung to it. She pried the tracers from the blade and returned it to its place. A cold and stiff rag hanging nearby allowed her to wipe the blood off the tracers.

  What did it mean?<
br />
  She stepped over to the shelf of plastic-wrapped packages and inspected them by the gleam of her flashlight. One was labeled WHELAN and the other PHELAN. She opened the seals and pulled out the contents, first one and then the other. The smell of brine touched her nose.

  Each was a wolf pelt, with skull and paws still attached. One wolf had scar tissue around its eyes. The other had a discolored paw. This was they. Whelan and Phelan. These were two of the werewolves she had killed. Their corpses had been brought back here and flayed.

  What did it mean?

  Like a bubble that swells and swells and refuses to burst, some idea, some insight, was nudging at the edges of her thought, but could not make itself clear.

  Suddenly, as unexpectedly as an ambush, the thought arose, “I wish Winged Vengeance were here. He would know exactly what this meant.” And tears stung her eyes. She could not wipe them because of her mask, so she merely grimaced and squinted while she returned the wolf pelts to their plastic wrappings and replaced them on the shelf.

  Back in the garage space, she carefully secured one tracer within the floor slats in one of the clean cages, one presumably headed for the City of Corpses, and then did the same for one of the dirty cages, presumably headed for LIs.

  Then, she turned toward the garage door. As above, there was a postern door in one corner of the garage door. As before, the Cheyenne in his haste had not locked it behind him.

  Down she went.

  5. Fourth Vault: Lower Sanctum

  Yumiko saw the leaping heat reflections in her infrared lenses before she was halfway down the curving ramp. She tossed her head to snap the mask up and to look with her naked eye.

  It was firelight. Judging from the size and texture of the shadows, and the way they flickered and jumped, the light came from scores of candles thickly scattered throughout the chamber below. From the way they shivered in the still air and from the unnaturally cold air touching her face like the brush from a feather of an arctic owl, her heart told her that a ghost—or many ghosts—was near at hand.