The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,86

once, a few years ago.”

Sounds of disgust and anger rang out of the group. Then a deeper voice of authority spoke for the first time.

“Put a charm on him and keep him alive till we can ask him some questions. I’ll send word to Hendricks that we found his lost dog.”

“Yes, Tackman.”

The one leaning over me waved her arms, and my consciousness sailed away.

When it returned, I was already in a cell inside Sheertop: the Opus’s highest security prison. It seemed an excessive measure for a busted-up Human still bleeding from the head, but I wasn’t in any position to complain. The room I was given had an inch-thick mattress, a metal toilet and no window. I’d stayed in worse.

The cell door was flat and translucent. I learned later that it was pure magical energy. On the other side of it, there was a handsome warden with sharp features, even for an Elf. You could have used his cheekbones to skin a deer.

“How long have I been a—” I started, but my throat was too dry to finish a sentence.

“A week,” said the warden. “Not asleep, though. We’ve had a whole variety of charms working through your mind. You’ve been very useful, actually. With the information you gave the Opus, they should have the mountain back under our control within days.”

I was sore all over but my arm was particularly painful. I pulled back my sleeve and discovered that I hadn’t just been questioned without my consent, I’d also been given a new tattoo. It was cruder than the others. Thicker. This was not a mark of pride. It was identification. A barcode.

“Welcome to Sheertop Prison. We don’t usually house your kind here as the power of the place is wasted on a species so… inconsequential. But the High Chancellor asked for a favor and I can never say no to a friend.”

When I thought about Hendricks, it was like someone pushed pins into my brain. Since leaving the Opus, I’d been doing my best not to think of him. Now, he knew exactly where I was. Any day, he could walk back in and I’d have no choice but to face the mentor I’d betrayed. That was worse than the small room or the insane screaming down the hall or any of it. The fact that I couldn’t run anymore, and I’d have to sit and wait right there to face what I’d done.

The warden walked away and the wall between us turned solid. It was like a concrete box had been constructed around me.

Two days passed. My sleep was broken by screaming and my meals were brown mush and water. They were the last good days of my life.

25

So, Portemus thought that a post-Coda creature had been running around with magic in its muscles. A creature that was now occupying a bucket in his lab. Of course, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. I knew that more than anyone.

But, if it was, that changed everything. Everything about the case. Everything about Rye. Everything about everything.

I needed to talk to someone who would shine some light on Portemus’s story and tell me if it was bullshit. When you want to separate rumor from fact, the devil is in the details. Luckily for me, I knew a Demon, and I was hoping that would be just as good.

The phones were dead. Water damage from the flood, most likely. I had to march all the way up to the House of Ministers to see Baxter Thatch, but the displaced slum-dwellers were keeping Baxter far too busy to deal with me. I did manage to lock down a meeting for the next morning when they would be working their other job as curator of the Sunder City Museum.

I was agitated and impatient but when I went back to my office to change my clothes and decide what to do next, my night waiting for Pete caught up with me and I passed out in my chair with a Clayfield dangling from my lips.

Museums make me nervous. Not a rational fear, I know, but growing up in Weatherly gave me an aversion to educational institutions. That happens when you find out everything your teachers told you is a lie.

The Weatherly Museum that I frequented as a boy was a truly impressive library of misinformation. Histories that never happened. Heroes that never existed. Every exhibit was a cruelly constructed story, painting a terrifying version of life outside the walls. The rest of the world