Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
You can sanctify soil without much trouble, but hallowed ground is something altogether different, for not all soil is willing.
—Abbot Edwin, first Abbot of Westminster Abbey, Journals
Lying on the pumping station floor, Bazalgette’s fallen vestiges blurred in the same way Cassius had the night we met. They screamed and writhed on the wet tiles as their blue semblances began to tear from their corpses. Cassius stared down at his feet and sighed.
“Ah, hell.” I dropped to my knees next to Buzz Cut, scooped up his bindings, and tied them back around his neck.
As I did, the memory of my brother Mark spending a whole Saturday with me at the pier came and went.
My heart skipped a beat, and I took a hard breath.
Buzz Cut stopped thrashing and lay still, staring up at me.
I did the same for Braids, tying her sword-hand binding around her elbow. The memory of Aunt Gloria chasing off some boys who’d followed me home flared and was gone. Another hollow.
These vestiges were still injured, but they wouldn’t lose themselves forever. I sat back, gasping for air, feeling a little weaker, and colder.
Cassius hunkered down next to me on the wet floor. “Are you all right?” “I think so.”
“Good,” he said. “Then tell me, please, why you would do that?”
“I don’t know, man.” I shook my head and told him I just didn’t want them to lose everything because of me.
The centurion glanced at the vestiges. “You show human empathy toward necromantic beings who would not have saved you.”
I sighed.
Cassius shook his head. “Sooner or later, you will have no choice but to dismiss a semblance from a vestige.”
I’d read the term. “ ‘Dismiss’ is an awfully clean word for killing someone.”
“Nevertheless—”
“As long as it’s not today.”
Cassius stood, his sword hanging at his side. “Well, Jack Solomon, I will at least say that I am happier to know you today than I was yesterday.” “Thanks, man,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. “Tell me something, though. Do semblances know what they’re getting into?
When they’re bound, I mean?”
“Most find it an acceptable risk,” Cassius explained, “since they believe that occupying a real body will improve their chances of moving on.”
I turned to the two vestiges, who were still gaping at me. “You two work for the Shiguan?”
“We did until you rebound us,” said Buzz Cut. I pulled his collar back. “No Shiguan tattoo.”
“A few of us remain unmarked,” he said. “For discreet tasks.” “Why did you save us?” asked Braids.
I chuckled. “Not your day to die, I guess.”
The vestiges looked up at Cassius, eyes wide. The centurion laughed. “He is . . . unconventional, but genuine.”
Buzz Cut stood. “I’m Sherzer.” Braids followed. “Delain.” “Good to meet you both,” I said.
“Now that we bear your mark,” Sherzer asked, “may we know what it represents?”
“My mark?”
Cassius took hold of Sherzer’s wrist and pointed to a sigil on his binding—music notation for the fermata. I’d seen it appear on Cassius’s threads the night I’d renewed his bindings, and the field guide said every thanatist has a unique sigil. Made sense this would be mine.
“It’s a fermata,” I told them. “From the Italian verb ‘to stay.’” I looked at the fermata tattoo on the back of my wrist. “Think of it like holding on, sticking it out when things get tough.”
“To stand firm,” Cassius added.
I nodded, then looked over at the corpse-paint killer, who was nothing now but a pile of ashes. “Cassius and I had only been here a few minutes, and you just happened to show up and take this body?”
Sherzer stowed his rods in a waist harness. “Bazalgette operates a sleeper team to feed his pools. We monitor morgue transmissions. Perform recovery operations.”
“What would you have us do?” asked Delain.
Their bindings were now mine, same as the centurion’s. I felt a tug of responsibility toward them, too—and wondered if my dad felt the same way about boys who fought for him.
“Maybe head over to the Iron Horse on Manette Street,” I told them. “You’ll be safe there. Ask for Lady. She’ll take care of your wounds.” I started to go, then stopped. “Would you be able to testify against Brach about the assassination attempt?”
They stared blankly at me. “We don’t know anything about an assassination attempt,” Sherzer finally said.
“We just do body recovery. But if you were trying to take the body of a Shiguan assassin”—he pointed at Ghost Face’s ashes—“you’ve just made yourselves enemies of every Shiguan in the Strata.
Word will get back fast. Bazalgette was right, you better not linger. ”
Good advice. “Well, then, I guess you know what you’re getting into. And with me, it’s pretty simple: if you have my back, I’ll have yours. Cool?”
Sherzer smiled. “Cool.” Delain bowed.
“We can talk again later if you want,” I said. “But right now, it sounds like we better go.”
We hiked up the metal staircase into the silky darkness. I pulled my Zippo again. The little gift of flame was proving to be a treasure. I lit it, and with Cassius’s help pressed upward, Sherzer and Delain in tow.
Topside, I paused long enough to take several lungfuls of air. Then our new friends found a rear exit and headed to the Horse, as Cassius and I hurried down the hall toward the autopsy bay door.
Before we even got there, Cage opened it and whispered, “Quickly, out of the hall.”
We stepped inside.
“We can’t stay long,” I said. “Henry’s personal effects?”
Cage combed his ’stache. “Oh, my. Well, just these last few minutes a challenge to your legitimacy to claim the effects has been posted. Technically, I’m to hold the items until probate . . .”
I’d already run afoul the law with Detective Bryant. Why break precedent with the courts. “Just tell me where they are and I’ll grab them myself. You can tell the authorities I stole them.”
Cage pointed to the corner of his desk. I rushed over, grabbed a large manila envelope, then crossed back to the door.
“Again, so sorry for your loss,” Cage said.
A few feet away, Henry’s body lay on the cold metal table. This was an unhappy place. I silently said goodbye, then Cassius and I hurried from the morgue.
I called Chuey to tell him. He’d loved Henry, too. We spoke briefly and promised to catch up at the Horse. Then Cassius and I walked two blocks to a small courtyard and sat on a bench beside a large hedgerow in the afternoon sun.
The reality of Henry’s death was in this plain manila folder, and that was heavier and hurt more than anything else I’d been through recently. I didn’t need to do this here or now, but I wanted to. Maybe I needed to.
So, with trembling fingers, I unwound the little thread and pulled back the flap.
Gently, I shook out the contents—Henry’s wallet, his keys, and two slips of paper—letting them fall into my lap.
This was what Brach had so desperately wanted.
One of the papers was a laminated quote by Keith Moon: I love to see people laugh and I love it more if I can make them laugh.
It was Henry’s favorite quote. I’d heard him say it a thousand times.
The other paper was unreadable, the ink too blurred by river water.
His wallet held three wet photos: Martha, his wife, seated at a piano facing away toward a window; the Iron Horse stage, blurry, but I’d have bet it was the Who; and one of Henry and me laughing as we loaded a guitar cabinet into a van.
I miss you, Henry.
There were a few cards tucked tightly into his billfold. I pulled them out and slowly leafed through them. One was for an antiquarian. The other was from a barrister, a Mr. Alastair Cooper. Lawyers keep secrets for their clients, don’t they? Maybe this Cooper knew something that could help us.
I pulled out my phone again—waterproof to a depth of six feet, for once it seemed the manufacturer hadn’t lied—and dialed the number on the card. A familiar voice answered. “Alastair Cooper. Who, may I ask, is calling?”
“Church?”
The line went silent for several moments. “That you, Jack?” “Church, why does this solicitor’s card ring through to you?”
“I have a second phone . . .” The line went silent again. Then, “Bloody damn, you’ve been called to collect Henry’s effects, haven’t you? Jack, how quickly can you meet me at the Iron Horse? There are things we need to discuss posthaste.”
I’d wait to tell him Brach had been after Henry’s things. “I need to swing by my place to grab a shower and some dry clothes. Be there in fifteen.”
“Good,” said Church. “Oh, and Jack, you should know that some of the regulars never turned up today. Among the absentees was Jimmy. Gives me a bad feeling.”
I’d forgotten that I told Jimmy to come by for another lesson today at my place, which was now outside the protection of the ward. Angela’s pale skin in the water flashed in my mind.
I hung up my phone and shoveled Henry’s effects back into the folder.
Then Cassius and I hoofed it back toward my flat.
When we turned onto Flitcroft Street, the door to my apartment was open.
Jimmy wouldn’t have left the door like that.
Then something moved in the window. Cassius raised his sword, I drew my new knife, and together we stepped into my flat.