Whisperworld
Chapter 7
Zach and I returned to the base, but Gregory insisted that we report immediately to Thorn’s office.
“The High Gardener will want to know what you’ve discovered,” Gregory said. “Good work, you two. Less than two days and you found your man.”
“We still don’t know–” I started to object, but our boss was already leading Zach and me out the door, brushing his hands excitedly down his robes.
“Very good work, Reed,” Gregory insisted.
He led us out of the base, intent on being present when Thorn received the good news. We strode briskly through the ranks of dark and silent robots, back up into the dim greenish daylight and across the base lot toward the Houses.
This close to the Stormsphere, there wasn’t even a breeze to mark the sandstorm raging beyond its protection. But the western sky glowed in pale flashes of lightning and illuminated dark clouds of billowing dust. Liam had to be dead by now, scoured away by the sharp sands and winds or charred to bones.
The boy wasn’t a murderer, but he was a dreameater. Psychics were dangerous. I had seen that first hand. Just last year, I put a crossbow bolt through the skull of a psychic man holding two other Blackthumbs in the air with nothing but the power of his rage. I’d felt damned good about the shot, too.
But that had been a grown man. He was psychotic, not begging for his life.
This sick, heavy weight in the pit of my stomach was more like what I felt during birth control jobs. As far as I knew, no one chose to be a dreameater. It just… happened. The Gardeners said that God cursed those he judged guilty, whether we mortal creatures understood their sins or not. Did God see a difference between the penitent ones, like Liam, and those like the Whitefingers, who cultivated their curse?
Gregory hesitated in the polished lobby of the Gardeners’ white building, nervous eyes flicking between the stairs and elevator.
“Come with me,” he decided, and pressed a button on the wall marked with an arrowhead. It lit up.
Zach looked at me and gave a restrained grin. To him, this was a treat. I nodded back with a smile that I hoped was convincing.
I was edging closer to the stairs when there was a noise like a tiny bell. The elevator doors opened, not swinging in or out, but sliding into the walls instead. The science of the old world was amazing, but I didn’t quite see the point. What was wrong with hinges? Actual doors instead of curtains seemed luxury enough and there was no shortage of space for them in here.
We all climbed in and Gregory pressed another button inside the elevator. There were a dozen of them arranged in rows along a shiny metal panel, each with different numbers and symbols engraved on them. The elevator doors slid closed with a hiss and I gasped as I felt the floor move under me. Was it going to fall? Even Zach reached out and grabbed the handrail around the tiny room’s edge. But Gregory just swayed with the soft lurch and checked his reflection in the polished surface of the sliding doors. He smoothed his robes several times and went to work on his hair.
There was another bob and dip as the elevator settled to a stop a moment later, but this time I was prepared for it and didn’t do anything embarrassing. With another bell tone, the doors opened and I found myself looking down a different hallway. We were on the top floor already.
Thorn’s office was still a lush paradise. The air was sweet with the smell of flowers and I couldn’t help but take several deep, sweet-scented breaths. Greenguard weren’t allowed to enter the greenhouses any more than the water boys or glass polishers. We were paid in luxuries like fruits and vegetables from the gardens, but flowers were the sacred, God-given province of the Gardeners — and the Gardeners alone.
“High Gardener Thorn,” Gregory announced, sketching a little bow. “I wanted to personally inform you that Daniel Byron’s killer has been found and executed. My Greenguard, Reed and Dias, caught and sentenced him earlier today.”
“His name was Liam Fox,” I said.
Thorn stood in front of his expansive windows. Beyond Angel City, the storm filled the sky with churning black and flashes of yellow-green lightning.
“What about the key?” Thorn asked. “Was it recovered?”
Gregory shifted nervously, perhaps regretting not debriefing us before marching us over to his superior. “Um… I’m not sure…”
“What did you find?” asked Thorn.
He directed the question at Zach. Gregory fell silent, excluded for the moment.
“We found a water boy who had been injured by the glass that killed Gardener Byron,” Zach said. His voice was steady. I wondered if mine would be, too. “The Halo scanned him red, a dreameater, so we sentenced him to the storm.”
“But he said there was a Whitefinger in the greenhouse,” I interrupted. “Liam swore that he tried to warn Byron, not kill him. That the Whitefinger actually killed your Gardener.”
Gregory puffed up and waved his hands. “Come now, Reed. If I had an orchid for every time a criminal said a Whitefinger did it, I’d have my own greenhouse.”
I took a deep breath and started digging a grave for my career.
“I don’t think the boy was your killer, Thorn,” I said. “If he was powerful enough to kill a Gardener and two Greenguard, then why didn’t he use his psionics to escape us today?”
One of Thorn’s thick brows shot up. He considered that for a moment.
“When a dreameater’s abilities first awaken, they are often confused. Out of control,” the High Gardener said slowly. “Liam may not have been able to summon that power when he needed it. Do you have any other reason to doubt his guilt?”
“Yeah, actually,” I answered. “We found something at the crime scene that doesn’t fit.”
I produced the piece of lace from my pocket and held it out. Thorn took the scrap and inspected it, then handed it to Gregory, who made a show of examining the lace closely.
“Unless you recognize that,” I said, “we still don’t know where it came from. It was snagged on a piece of glass, which means that it was caught or placed there after the greenhouse was shattered. We haven’t been able to match it to anything.”
“That’s true, sir,” Zach agreed. My hero. “Liam also said that the Whitefinger took something from around Byron’s neck, a piece of white plastic on a chain. I searched Liam, but he didn’t have anything like that on him.”
“The key,” Gregory said slowly. “He could have hidden it or thrown it away, I suppose.”
“Key?” I asked. Zach gave me another warning glance, but my curiosity was seldom bound by good sense. “That was the key?”
“Yes,” Thorn said.
He reached into his robes and withdrew a chain from around his neck. A small plastic rectangle dangled from it, a bit thicker than a sheet of paper. It was shiny and white, just like Liam had said, with a black stripe running down one side. There were faded markings on the other side that looked like letters and maybe a winged shape. A bird?
“What does it open?” I asked.
“This is a very special kind of key,” Thorn said and Gregory began nodding along with him. “An ancient key that opens only one door in the Whisperward.”
“Which door?”
“The door of the Tear of God.”
