The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,79

These bones were elongated only, like they were stretched. But that is only part of the discovery. The true revelation is here.”

He pointed a covered nail to one of the hanging pieces of meat.

“This is a muscle. Judging by its size, I first believed it to be a thigh or bicep. Even so, it would have been abnormally large, as though the owner had trained to be a wrestler. But no. This is an infraspinatus, a much smaller muscle in the scheme of things. At least, it is supposed to be. The creature this came from must have been a powerhouse. Pure strength. Something I have not seen in quite some time.”

I looked at the purple lump of fat and flesh and tried to stop my stomach acids from dancing. Portemus looked like he could kiss it.

“For some time?” I asked. “What are you saying?”

His white eyes glistened with excitement.

“If I did not know better, Mr Phillips, I would say that these muscles grew with magic.”

I stepped back out into the main room to catch my breath. I couldn’t yet tell what it was that was bubbling up inside me, but something had snapped. I didn’t actually believe it yet. The hope was too dangerous. But just the idea…

What if we could fix it? What if, somehow, I could undo all those terrible things I’d done?

Emotion swelled in my chest. It was something unfamiliar.

Hope.

Just a bit of hope. That’s all. I’d forgotten what it felt like.

I was standing in the aisle between the beds of dead-eyed dreamers and I tried not to let my gaze wander into theirs. I failed, and a mottled white body with black hair caught my eye. Even in life, his skin had been sickly pale. Now, it outshone every sad corpse around him. It was the tough boy with the broken fingers from the crypt. His matted hair was splayed out in a fan around an empty, open, jawless face. His busted knuckles lay over the sheet, circled with a marker for further examination.

If I hadn’t recognized him, I might not have stopped to see the others. Each bed contained a kid that was too similar and too damn familiar. There were too many Humans in this house of death and they’d all crossed my path a few nights before. All young men and all busted around the head with cuts and bruises.

The inflictions were as familiar to me as the faces of the victims. Canine claws had carved their way into the brains and eyeballs of these young boys and Pete had done away with burying their bodies in far-off swamps.

Dammit, Pete. Not now.

I needed to find out what the melted creature was. I needed to know if it was connected to The League of Vampires or Rye or January Gladesmith.

But I’d told Pete about those kids. I was responsible for putting him on their trail. In a better world, after the flood, other dark deeds would keep quiet for a while. But I knew better. Misery loves company and murder never takes a break. Neither, judging by how many kids had been turned into corpses, had Pete.

I went back to my office, grabbed brass knuckles and rope, and went back out west.

24

From the rooftop of The Mare Hotel you can see most of Swestum Square, including the ever-swinging cowboy doors of that damn saloon. I leaned against a stone statue that had once been the figurehead to the fanciest place in town: a life-size Unicorn rearing back on its hind legs and kicking out at the air. A pre-Coda sculpture, of course, so the animal was still majestic and grand. Not one of the deranged creatures that wandered the wilds afterwards.

I watched shapes slide in and out of the saloon door; a range of ages and intoxication but all with the hunched posture of boys pretending to be men and men pretending to be tougher than they were.

If Pete had got the inspiration for his attack from the information I gave him, then this must have been where he started. A few more kids that I recognized from the meeting came out of the bar and I watched them till they rounded distant corners or dropped out of sight. Every alley around Swestum was too dark to make out proper detail, but I scanned them for any sign that someone might be waiting.

It was hours after midnight when I saw old Baldy stumble out of the saloon with the dregs of a drink