Whisperworld
Chapter 4
Thorn’s aide was a moon-faced teenage boy named Martin. We met him downstairs in the polished lobby and I liked the kid at once — after all, he had brought us a special present. Martin held out something wrapped in padded cloth.
“This was sent up from the Greenguard armory for you,” he told us.
I took the bundle carefully. I knew what was inside: a Halo, a relic from before the Wrath. But I opened it anyway. I didn’t get to play with the old tech very often.
The Halo was a ring of pearlescent white polymer that snapped closed around my wrist like a bracelet. There was a slightly recessed button on one side and when I pressed it, the halo-gram appeared in the air above my wrist. I wasn’t scanning anything, though, so it just shimmered and the words system ready glowed in transparent green letters.
Gregory didn’t let these things out of the armory very often, and I shut off swiftly. Their batteries were finite, and when they ran out, the Halo would be nothing more than a useless piece of jewelry. And if a hapless Blackthumb actually broke one while using it, then God help him. Or her.
“Do you want to carry it?” I asked Zach.
He shook his head briskly, so I wrapped up the Halo again and secured it away in one of my pockets. Zach turned to Martin, who had been watching in fascination. Not me, I suspected, but the Halo that I now carried.
“Please show us where Byron was killed,” Zach told him.
We followed Martin out of the Gardeners’ brightly lit building and back into the dark night. The round-faced young Gardener retrieved a glowing lantern mounted on a hooked pole, then led us back out into the rows of glass greenhouses. More Blackthumbs patrolled the Houses, crossbows loaded and held ready, or stood at attention at the shiny intersections. A pair of them nodded to us and our Gardener escort as we approached.
“This is it,” Martin said. “I heard the glass breaking and then screams. When it was done, I found Gardener Byron here. He and the Greenguard were already dead.”
It would have been easy to find the crime scene even without Martin. There was broken glass everywhere, shining as our guide gestured with his lantern: huge, glittering blades, finger-sized shards and uncountable tiny splinters that shone in the lamplight. Someone had already removed the bodies to begin burial preparations, but they had poured a white chalk outline around where each one had laid. Zach crossed his arms, inspecting the damage.
“No wonder Thorn suspects a dreameater of doing this,” he said. “Look…”
Splashes of blood had seeped into the earth all around the chalked body outlines and dried black during the day. I pulled Martin’s lantern down and held it close to the ground. The closest pieces of glass were covered in blood. And dust. And footprints. I growled.
“What the hell is all this?” I said, pointing to the ground. The dirt on top was dry, not sticky with blood. All of this foot traffic happened after the killing. “Was there a parade or something?”
“The Gardeners had to move the milkweed,” Martin said. Not very apologetically, I thought. “With all of the glass broken out, the greenhouse is useless. Anyone or anything could just walk right in.”
Milkweed? I had to think for a moment, but I remembered that particular flower from Sunday school. It was useless. Worse than useless — milkweed was poisonous. But it was a flower and so it was the Gardeners’ sacred duty to protect it. And now they had trampled my crime scene to save a toxic weed.
“Those aren’t the only tracks,” Zach announced, interrupting my irritation. He squatted down beside the other chalk outline. “The dirt’s kicked up under the blood spatter. From before Byron died. And this man, at least, got his knife out.”
One of the dead Greenguard silhouettes did indeed have a bladed shape at the end of his arm.
“But this was sloppy work,” I said. “Why didn’t he use his crossbow?”
“Maybe he did, but then didn’t have the time to reload,” Zach suggested.
We went inside the ruined greenhouse. With the glass broken, all that remained was the welded metal frame. It was like walking through the bones of some long-dead but still mighty creature. Martin followed us carefully between boxy flowerbeds and empty shelves. There was even more broken glass in here. I winced as a piece snapped sharply beneath my boot.
“Over here,” Martin said. He held his lamp out above another pool of blood and powdery white outline.
I knelt to inspect the scene. This must have been Byron, inside the greenhouse while the Blackthumbs patrolled outside. I scanned the shelves and now-empty flowerbeds. There was blood and glass everywhere. Delicately, I picked up a large triangular shard. It was dark with blood, covered on every surface. Not just drops, bled on after the fact.
“I think this was the murder weapon,” I said.
“What?” Zach asked. “So our killer grabbed a piece of glass and stabbed the Gardener and Greenguard? Slit their throats, maybe?”
“No.” I pointed to the bloodstains on the greenhouse floor. “I don’t think so. This isn’t a pool of blood. Look at the edges. There were multiple blood sprays. Byron wasn’t stabbed and then left. He must have been bleeding from a dozen wounds or more.”
I looked to Martin for confirmation. The boy was nodding.
“They were all sliced up,” he agreed. “It was horrible.”
“I think Thorn’s right. This had to be a dreameater,” I concluded reluctantly. I could practically hear Zach aching to say I told you so. He restrained himself… for now. “Look at the walls and ceiling. There isn’t a pound of glass left in the whole frame. This wasn’t just someone throwing pots or stones through the walls. Something shattered the entire greenhouse, but I don’t see or smell any sign of an explosion. It had to be psionics.”
“A dreameater pulled this whole place to pieces and flung the shards at Byron and the Blackthumbs. That’s not a quiet way to kill,” Zach said. He squinted out through the broken walls. “Maybe he was surprised. Dreameaters are jumpy, unpredictable. I don’t think this was planned.”
“Then why did it happen?” I asked. “What was a dreameater doing in the Houses if not to kill Byron?”
“I’m not sure yet, Julia.”
I stood and walked slowly around the small crime scene. Martin followed with the lantern.
“Zee,” I said.
I pointed to one of the steel framing struts. A scrap of lace was caught on a jagged tooth of glass like a cobweb. Lace wasn’t easy to make and I’d never seen much of it. This particular piece looked old and frayed, stained by dust but still delicate and beautiful.
“From our killer?” Zach asked.
“Well, we don’t wear any of this stuff on our uniforms, Zee. Do you think Byron was big on lace?”
“Probably not.”
I pocketed the lace for the moment. If it had been part of our killer’s clothing, it might help us find him.
“I’ve got something here, too,” Zach said.
He pointed down to another black spatter of blood. He ducked through the broken greenhouse to another one in the street. It was at least fifty feet away from the outline of Byron’s body or those of his two dead Greenguard.
“More blood,” I said.
“Not as much as around the bodies, though. I think it belongs to our dreameater. It’s not a full trail, but he definitely hurt himself.”
“One of the Blackthumbs might have shot him,” I pointed out.
Zach shook his head. “Bolts do internal damage, but they tend not to bleed a whole lot. I think our suspect not only wasn’t planning on killing anyone, but was startled and managed to cut himself when he attacked.”
“Maybe,” I said. “It’s getting late and I want to go the fuck to bed. Let’s see the bodies, Martin.”
Daniel Byron was laid out in the tool shed, a large building that housed the sacred implements of the Gardeners’ trade. It was also where the dead — at least Greenguard and Gardeners — were prepared for burial. Luckily, the Gardeners had been more worried about their precious milkweed than their deceased brother, so no one had changed Byron out of his clothes yet or removed the glass from his body.
The two Blackthumbs lay motionless on tables nearby. Bright white bulbs glowed overhead, casting stark spotlights across the shed that swung wildly when Zach bumped into one.
“Be careful,” Martin snapped.
“Of course,” Zach said. He removed his hat and held it to his chest. “Sorry.”
“Martin, who was Byron?” I asked. “What was he doing in the Houses after dark? The plants sure weren’t up to anything exciting at that hour.”
“Gardener Byron was probably checking the night bloomers,” Martin answered. “He tended the Houses day and night. He was breeding the flowers for better nectar.”
“Why?” I asked.
Thorn’s aide blinked and then answered carefully. “Are you saying the God-given duties of the Gardeners have any bearing on your investigation?”
“Probably not,” said Zach. “I doubt a dreameater would kill Byron over flower nectar, even accidentally.”
Martin nodded stiffly. I really wanted to pry, but didn’t think that I was going to get anywhere with Martin clenching up and Zach backing him, so I busied myself examining the body.
In life, Byron had been tall — almost as tall as Thorn — but with a workman’s muscular build. The dead Gardener seemed to be somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, with the darkened skin and ruddy complexion of someone who spent a lot of time in the sun. He had large, capable hands with dirt and green plant material crusted deep beneath the nails.
Cuts covered Byron’s face and hands. Most of them were shallow. His palms and forearms, particularly, were studded with shards of glass. Defensive wounds, I suspected, as he raised his arms to protect his face from the storm of glass. It hadn’t done him much good, though. There was a sliver the length of my small finger buried in Byron’s left eye. It would have been painful as hell, but not for long. Another larger piece of glass stuck out of the side of his neck. I inspected the wound. It had sliced the artery clean through. Even with glass blocking the flow of blood, he must have bled to death in a matter of seconds.
I told Zach what I’d found and he said that the two Blackthumbs were pretty much the same. Both men were riddled with glass. Somewhat less of it had been able to penetrate the tough Greenguard fatigues, but still enough to kill them.
“It’s all about the same size as the pieces in Byron. One blast hit all three of our guys,” I guessed.
“That’s a powerful dreameater,” said Zach.
I pulled away the stiff black collar of Byron’s robes and found a thin red line below the dagger of glass that had taken his life. This wasn’t a cut, but a narrow abrasion ran along the back and sides of his neck.
“Take a look at this,” I told Zach. “He wore something around his neck.”
“Something that’s not there anymore. Maybe the dreameater took it.”
“Martin?” I asked. “Do you know anything about this?”
Thorn’s aide fidgeted and didn’t immediately answer. I fixed him with my best authoritative stare. Strictly speaking, Martin outranked the hell out of me, but I hoped that I was invested with a little of Thorn’s authority in this investigation. Either I was right or else I was getting to be as intimidating as Zach.
“Gardener Byron was a keybearer,” Martin said at last.
“Is that a ceremonial title or was he actually carrying a key?” I asked.
“There was a key,” the young Gardener admitted.
“To what?”
Martin turned red this time and bristled like a prickly pear.
“Something important,” was his short reply.
Zach put a hand on my arm before I could start shouting. Why ask us to investigate this murder if the Gardeners wouldn’t tell us what we needed to know to solve it? Maybe I should have been a Gardener instead of a Blackthumb. They seemed to have all the answers and maybe my curiosity wouldn’t go so often unsatisfied.
“The Gardeners manage and care for the Houses,” Martin told us. “But there were a few other workers this morning, sweepers and water boys and the like. They’ve all been collected and are under guard until you clear them.”
The workers were being held, but I noticed that Martin said nothing about the Gardeners. Of course not. The Gardeners were above reproach.
“We’ll test them tomorrow,” said Zach. “We know our killer is a dreameater and that he’s injured. That narrows it down. If we can clear all of the greenhouse personnel, we’ll move out into the rest of Angel City.”
Gently, I patted the Halo in my pocket. “We’ll find the bastard. And then he’s going to answer my questions.”
