Sam Marlowe's Arc

Chapter 12 of 14

Sam carried the wooden model back to his burned-out office, the carved boats pressed to his chest. Dolly waited in the doorway. Lysander stood by the window, sorting salvaged files by lamplight. Sam set the model on the desk. "A boss out there wants to open this. I don't know his name. I can't hit a man I can't see. If I sit here, he takes me from behind." Lysander tapped a file. "Then name him. Bosses leave tracks. Contracts, bribes, bodies. This one leaves none." He slid a page across the desk. "No name. No face. Nobody in the district will speak of him. That silence is the track." Dolly leaned over the page. "A man everyone's scared to name. The Watcher said the same thing. The one nobody names already knows." Sam looked at the model. He thought of the Mayor, who had come to his window and spared this lock. "There's one person who'd know a rival that quiet," Sam said. "The man who built the walls." The lamp guttered. The room went cold. A tall figure filled the doorway, dressed all in white, three eyes above two stacked mouths. The Mayor stepped inside without a sound. Dolly backed against the wall. Lysander set down his file and said nothing. "You still have it," the Mayor said. His eyes moved to the model. "Good." "Somebody wants to open it," Sam said. "Drown the city. I need his name." The Mayor was quiet a long moment. "He is the other half of me," the Mayor said. "I built the city. He wants it gone. We were one thing once. Now we move apart." "He got a name?" "He answers to the Boss." The Mayor's voice went flat. "He worships what the wall traps. He would open the door to reach it. He has felt the city shake. He has seen a hand bleed through." Behind the Mayor, the shadows in the stairwell thickened. A second figure stood there, the Mayor's mirror. Black hair, three burning red eyes, black coat. The Boss had followed the Mayor up. He had heard everything. "You," Sam said. His hand found nothing but the model. "Me," the Boss said. His eyes fixed on the carved boats. "You have my door." The Mayor turned to face his mirror. Neither moved toward the other. The two burning shapes stood filling the stairwell, white against black, and the whole floor seemed to lean between them. "Run," the Mayor told Sam. "Take it and run." Sam grabbed the model. Dolly caught his sleeve and pulled him toward the back stairs. Lysander went ahead, sweeping the files under his coat. Behind them the Boss spoke once more, plain and final. "I know your face now, detective. I know your girl. There is nowhere in the city I cannot reach." Sam ran into the dark with the lock in his arms. He had his enemy's name. Now the Boss had his.