The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,27

I threw it down my throat to feed the devil. He got the taste and wanted more.

“Another.”

I upturned the glass on the narrow bar to emphasize my thirst. The barmaid got the hint and brought over the bottle, putting it down in front of me with long, slender fingers.

“Careful, Cowboy, you still have a job to do, don’t ya?” the voice rolled over me like cool water. I looked up at Eileen Tide’s smiling face. A tank top revealed illustrated sleeves and a body that asked you to make mistakes you wouldn’t regret. The librarian poured another perfect shot. “Or have you already found my friend?”

I shamelessly straightened myself up and wiped my dumb mouth with my thumb and forefinger.

“Not really. It seems I’ve been fishing for herring so far. The red kind.”

Her eyebrow crept up her smooth forehead and her eyes were as smart as a lover’s slap.

Dammit, Fetch, don’t try to be clever with this girl or she’ll show you just how stupid you are.

“Doing the double shift?” I asked, throwing back my second shot.

“Library pays the rent but not much else. A girl’s gotta drink, don’t she?” She poured me another, along with one for herself. “I’m here three nights a week then back in before sunrise to sort the books.”

“Ah, the old Sunder five-to-nine.”

She raised her shot and threw it back like a pro. It would take more than moonshine to rattle those rosy cheeks.

She shifted her shoulders down the bar to serve a college-aged couple who stumbled in attached at the lips. I sipped my drink for a few minutes and listened to them talk. Then Eileen laughed, and it hit me right in my chest. There was nothing nasty or sharp or broken about it, and for some reason that felt strange. Why should it? What had I become, when laughter felt like a lashing?

It was my devil fighting back. He didn’t want to hear it. It hurt his case. He fed off the laughter of the Nail Gang at the tavern. He fed off the sad eyes in the starved faces of the people on the streets. He fed off the rich dicks in high-up houses and the old bones by the road out of town.

But this weightless, vibrant laughter, a mile wide, rich and untethered – it made the devil close his eyes.

No. I need him tonight. I need him strong.

I threw a few coins beside the empty glass and slunk off without a goodbye. Youth and happiness had bloomed in that bar but I was going to the other garden where the weeds and shit were lying thick. I just needed a tool to cut my way through.

9

If you draw a circle around the city and throw a dart in the middle, you’ll hit the hospital. Not the old medical center crammed between sewerage canals downtown, but the one they built a few years ago.

They dropped the central block of Yorrick Park to make way for it: a new facility surrounded by green leaves and optimism. Hell of a job it was too. I helped cut down the trees, bulldoze the earth and lay the foundations but there wasn’t anything for me to do when the real construction started.

It was finished right before the Coda came. For one glorious fortnight, it was the brightest star of the city. We’d lost the magic, the fire and too many friends, but the hospital was still fresh and clean like a newly unwrapped present.

The blast happened before sunrise. The debate about what caused it still continues. Perhaps it was some problem with the new technology or a build-up of gas beneath the foundations. Most Sunderites thought it was a deliberate act of violence. Why? No one could guess. Not because it seemed unlikely but because the weeks after the Coda were a firework display of violence from all angles: lootings and revenge plots and lost souls lashing out. It was nearly impossible to pin down the source of any explosion.

The city didn’t even bother to clean it up. The shattered slabs were left out in the rain like rotting corpses. Concrete, glass, wood, sweat and good intentions all gone to waste. I walked across the carnage, putting my trust in the thick soles of my broken-down boots. The whole thing had been picked clean of brass, copper and any debris big enough to build into a shelter, but I just needed something simple.

The twisted steel bars were ripped open at all angles like snapped