Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files-2 (15 page)

“Marina employee. Found the door open and checked inside. Didn’t touch anything, called the police.”

“How do you know this is Barbarossa?”

“I just do.”

He looks at me calmly, and I scowl back. Right. More government secrets. “Any chance this could be something else? Smuggling’s a dangerous business.”

“Black marketeers aren’t known for their artistic sensibilities.” He gestures at the brain. “Or whatever this is supposed to represent.”

There’s all sorts of symbolism going on here, but I still don’t speak the language. “What did she smuggle?”

“Weapons, drugs, whatever paid the bills. She wasn’t choosy.”

“And the NSA tolerated this?”

“We let her make a living. Criminals aren’t the only ones with a use for a good smuggler.”

“Tell me about her weapon.”

“The Midnight Sword. Two blades with diamond-shaped tips, one shorter than the other, mounted one atop the other to mimic the appearance of two clock-hands pointing to twelve. Said to be able to cut through time itself, providing the wielder with the ability to move more quickly than normal or inflict wounds that vanish an hour later—even fatal ones.”

“Handy,” says Charlie. “A blade with an undo option.”

“Wait. So if the Sword was used on her brain—”

“It wasn’t—these cuts are surgically precise. But yes, if the Sword was used the brain could conceivably reintegrate—if the wielder knew what they were doing.”

“How about cause of death?”

“We won’t know until the autopsy. Eisfanger’s on his way to process the scene.”

I walk over to the edge of the dock. I can see the sleek shape of a craft just below the surface, painted a deep blue, a small deck jutting up with an open hatch in it. Submarine technology was on the verge of mass commercialization in my own world, and every law enforcement officer I know was dreading it. Homemade submersibles that skated along just under the surface were already widespread and hard to catch—a true sub that could go a few hundred feet down would be close to a ghost.

I turn around. “That door looks awfully strong, and it doesn’t seem to have been forced. It’s possible she let her killer in. Or he could have come in via water—has that gate been checked?”

“Yes. It hasn’t been tampered with, above or below the water line. You think she was killed here?”

“Hard to say. There’s no blood, but the condition of the body might preclude that. If she was transformed first, she might not have bled at all.”

Cassius nods. “It must have been an ambush. She would have fought, given the chance.”

“It was someone she knew, then. Someone she trusted, or at least didn’t fear.”

“Not necessarily. They might have gained entry through subterfuge—disguised as someone else, perhaps.”

“Who? FedEx? Someone delivering pizzas?” I shake my head. “She was a professional criminal, and I get the distinct impression she wasn’t a novice. She would have taken precautions.”

“That’s true,” Cassius says, though he seems reluctant to do so. “But that would seem to eliminate your prime suspect—John Dark.”

It’s the first time I’ve heard Cassius say his name. “Gretchen brought you up to speed on our visit to Silverado?”

“Yes.” He looks slightly uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to discuss it last night, in a crowded room.”

Funny, I don’t remember the limo being crowded at all. “Then let’s discuss it now. First off—how sure are you that Wertham’s actually dead?”

“Utterly. I helped dispose of the body.”

That’s three people who are convinced Wertham is a dead end. Of course, any of them could be lying.

“What can you tell me about Dark?”

“He’s . . . being looked into.”

“So you knew he was out there.”

“I can’t tell you everything I know about, Jace.”

“Including the existence of the guy I’m trying to catch?”

He stares down at the water and jams his hands deep into the pockets of his overcoat. “John Dark’s situation is complicated. Until you talked to Silverado, I thought it impossible for him to be involved. Now . . . now I’m not sure.”

“Tell me where he is. I’ll
make
sure.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. He’s disappeared.”

I throw my hands up in frustration. “Terrific. Can you tell me where he was, so I can try to track him down? Or would you prefer I handle this case blindfolded? I have a nice selection of scarves at home.”

He puts his own hands up, palms out. “I’d prefer you concentrate on the case itself. I’ll take care of finding Dark.”

“
Will
you? Great, that makes me feel
so
much better.”

Pires aren’t immune to sarcasm, but NSA directors are. “Good. Seeing as this is the second murder of a Bravo, I’ve been given clearance to contact and warn the others. Most of them have already heard.”

“But you still won’t let
me
talk to them.”

He doesn’t say anything, which is answer enough. I shake my head and stalk toward the door. Charlie follows me without a word.

“Where are you going?” Cassius asks. “Eisfanger hasn’t even—”

“Eisfanger can send me his report. I’m going somewhere that I might actually find some answers, instead of more damn questions.”

Back at the car I say, “I’m driving.” Charlie surrenders the keys without an argument. I lay a little more rubber than is probably professional leaving the parking lot, but I’m frustrated and there’s nothing handy to shoot.

“We have a destination?” Charlie asks. “Or you just want to ram a few cars and call it a day?”

“I don’t know about you,” I say, “but I’m going home. And going to bed.”

I light the candle Neil gave me and crawl under the covers.

Despite how wound up I am, it isn’t hard to fall asleep—I really didn’t get enough rest last night. The candle smells like musty paper and fresh ink, with just a touch of really strong soap. It’s oddly familiar, though I can’t quite place it. It reminds me a little of the smell of the corner drugstore where I grew up, the one that had an old-fashioned spinner rack of comics. It’s taller than I am, and the colors on the shiny covers are all sharp and exciting. I pull one out of the rack and look at it; muscular men and women in skintight costumes are fighting monsters, shooting beams from their eyes and swinging from lines that don’t seem to be attached to anything. The title is printed in large, impressive script, but I can’t read it—it’s a mishmash of letters and symbols, some alien language I don’t recognize.

“Reading is unreliable in dreams,” Neil says. He’s leaning back against the pharmacist’s counter, still wearing his sunglasses but now in a long white coat. “Most people can’t read the same line twice; some people can’t read text at all. A few—usually people who read a great deal while awake—can read, but can’t remember any of it when they wake up. They simply remember the
sensation
of reading. Like going to a party where you’re sure you had a good time, but all the details are fuzzy in the morning.”

“So I’m dreaming?” It’s obvious I am, but somehow it seems important to ask the question.

Neil’s reply is to glance behind me. A hippopotamus stares back, then smiles. It’s wearing braces.

“Fair enough,” I say. “I’ve got some questions to ask you.”

“Let’s go somewhere a little less distracting,” Neil says. He opens a plain white door and beckons me to follow him through it.

On the other side is a small, comfortable room. Two large leather armchairs face a fire burning merrily in a stone hearth. The walls are lined with filing cabinets made of polished oak with brass handles, reaching all the way up to the ceiling.

Neil sits down, now wearing a maroon velvet smoking jacket. I sit down in the other chair, and notice I’m dressed in a suit of armor. It’s oddly comfortable.

“How can I help you?” Neil asks pleasantly.

“There’s been another murder.” I fill him in on the details.

“Mmm,” he says when I’ve finished. “Yes, I understand what he’s referencing. The Doom Patrol.”

“Never heard of them.”

“They’re not as mainstream as some, though they have a long and rich history. The wheelchair is a reference to their leader, the Chief, who was disabled. The bandages signify Negative Man, who could release a mysterious being made of black energy from his body, and the metal body itself—bronzecolored, you say?—is no doubt meant to represent Robotman, a race-car driver who had his brain transplanted into a mechanical body following a crash.”

“Yeah? Was it chopped up into a neat little grid first?”

“No. But that’s where this gets interesting.” Neil clasps his hands together under his chin. “The Doom Patrol has been around since 1963, but they had a major relaunch in the 1980s. A writer named Grant Morrison came on board and took the book in a much darker, surreal direction. One of the characters he added was named Crazy Jane, after a character in one of Byron’s poems. She had multiple personalities as a result of child abuse—sixty-four of them, in fact.”

I nod, staring into the fire. There are faces there, shifting in and out of focus as the flames dance.

“Byron. So this Morrison was more literate than most comic book writers.”

Neil frowns at me disapprovingly. “Many writers of the form are literate—it was the form
itself
that was juvenile, or at least it was perceived that way in America in the mid-twentieth century. Morrison and other writers like him were part of what was called the Modern Age—their concepts and writing took comics to new heights of maturity and complexity.”

The first murder was with a silver weapon, the body dressed as the character who ushered in the Silver Age. “Was this Doom Patrol the first superpowered team of the Modern Age?”

“No. They were significant, but not the first—some would say that would be the X-Men. Of course, some people also claim that the X-Men were in fact merely a copy of the Doom Patrol in the first place.” He shakes his head. “But the most influential team book of the time was undoubtedly
Watchmen
. It’s widely cited as the most influential comic book ever printed.”

“Why’s that?”

“Many reasons: depth, structure, metaphysical concepts, layered characterization . . . but more than anything, it captured the zeitgeist of the time. I’m surprised your killer didn’t reference it, instead—but it dealt largely with the fear of nuclear Armageddon, a problem we don’t face here.”

No, you just have rogue Elder Gods to worry about . . . “So why would the killer pick this group over the others?”

“The common theme I see is transformation. The Doom Patrol were regarded as freaks, victims that decided to turn their handicaps into advantages. Just as the Silver Age Flash was frequently transformed by his enemies, the Doom Patrol were transformed by fate. Initially, anyway.”

The flames were beginning to take on a more definite shape. Something humanoid . . . “Initially?”

“Yes. Are you familiar with the term
retroactive continuity
?”

“Can’t say that I am.”

“It’s a term that gained popularity during the Modern Age. It refers to changing a character’s history—

altering a hero’s origin, for instance then stating that it’s always been that way.”

“Fictional revisionism.”

“In essence. Comic books never used to worry about things like historical accuracy, but as the medium aged, the idea of a shared, consistent universe took hold. Characters that met each other were supposed to remember it when they met again. A worldwide disaster was expected to affect everyone, not just the stars of one book. This worked well at first, but many of these heroes were depicted as living in the

‘real’ world, and being affected by events in it. And unlike pires, human beings age. In order to remain consistent, the writers had to come up with an explanation for why someone who fought Nazis in World War Two was beating up muggers in 1983. Their solution was to create
staggered
universes, with the older versions of the characters in one world, and the newer versions in another. This, of course, led to a proliferation of alternate worlds and timelines, compounded by the number of different writers who each contributed his or her own vision; mix well for dozens of issues every month times several decades, and you wind up with a convoluted, contradictory history no one can make sense of. What began as an attempt to build a linear structure grew into a tangle of multiple Earths, multiple versions of characters, and multiple timelines. In an attempt to impose order, DC Comics published a series called
Crisis on Infinite Earths
, where they essentially rewrote that history. The multiple Earths were merged into one, characters’ backgrounds were revised to make coherent sense, and some characters were rewritten altogether.”

The shape in the flames is getting clearer. It’s nude, male, and—

Cassius.

I look away quickly. “What’s this got to do with the Doom Patrol?”

“Morrison revised their origin. He revealed that their leader, the Chief, was in fact responsible for the horrific accidents that created them in the first place.”

Betrayal. A common enough motive for murder—but who was betrayed, and who were the betrayers?

Was the entire Brigade being blamed, or just Transe and the Sword?

I risk a quick glance at the fire. Cassius grins at me and gives me a little finger-wave. I look away again.

“There’s something else you should know about Morrison,” Neil continues. “His work frequently references meta-reality—the idea that fictional worlds are as real as our own, and that what we perceive as real is fiction to someone else. He’s quite famous for a sequence where one of his characters slowly turns around, stares out at the reader and states, ‘I can see you!’ ”

The nude flame-figure of Cassius is getting bigger. “And I see
you
,” I mutter. “Okay, so this writer likes to play around with metaphysics. Does he have any connections to the character from the first crime scene?”

“The Flash, you mean? Well, Morrison has written him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything; he’s a popular writer and has handled most of DC’s major characters at one time or another. But there’s something else about Morrison that’s much more pertinent to your investigation.”