Marc realized he had finally been in the Accord of Souls long enough to learn the patterns of a multi-species population, but cities as things never really changed. Olehmmishqu, on Hurquar, was really no different than New Metropolis, or reborn Shangdu, north of the ancient capitals of Nanking and Peking.
People were people, regardless of shape, color, or religious affiliation.
He was surrounded now by an entire restaurant full of them, unknowingly sharing their air with the single most wanted person in the Accord, at least until more people heard about Gareth Dankworth. After all, Marc was a cipher, a Vanir with a shady past working in the shadows of crime. Dankworth was still the thing parents warned their children against, human.
The man couldn’t hide for long.
Marc sipped a glass of wine and studied his three dinner companions. The two Warreth sisters, the crimson raptors Maiair and Yooyar, were part of his inner circle for this mission. Zorge, the Nari scientist/spy, took the other spot. Marc might have brought others, but these three were fitting well into his needs, and some of the others might be a little too well known to openly dine at a fancy joint like this.
And Marc really had a hankering for a good ribeye steak, something close enough to a baked potato, and a slice of pie afterwards. Gareth was out there, but he could wait. Marc knew how this city flowed.
Money went to the nice places. Here, that meant down on the river that ran slowly along a park-like Promenade. At least for the younger set. If your wealth was established and generational, you had a place up on the hills to the west.
Both were places he didn’t really want to see. The two traitors wouldn’t have ended up there, even trying to hide from him.
No, he needed to look in the rougher places. The warehouse district, out at the edge of town, where miles of identical blocks held tomorrow’s stock in trade. Or the meat-packing district, where refrigerated transports from various farming counties and planets coalesced with their exotic products, feeding their stock to the middlemen that served the boring, banal, cultural backbone of the Accord: the middle classes with their presumptions and small-minded ways.
Marc needed to be down with the bohemians, the artists, and the hustlers if he wanted to find a man trying to hide. The places where crime could be contained, and concealed, but still readily ignored for a good enough bribe to the right people.
Not the Constabulary. Those people had no sense of commerce. But they also weren’t that thick on the ground. No, Marc preferred the local beat cops. The men and women who knew their neighborhoods and would overlook the petty crimes for a little money on the side, as long as you kept a lid on your activities and the only victims were outsiders.
Always protect the neighborhood. Being in Olehmmishqu was really just like being home in Little Krakow, back in New Metropolis.
“What have we learned?” Marc turned his attention to Zorge, seated directly across and just finishing his salad with a crunch.
The older scientist also had the best manners of anyone Marc had kept when he thinned out some of the less-loyal elements. Zorge paused, set his fork down, dabbed at his mouth with a napkin, and sipped a bit of water.
Most of Marc’s crew probably didn’t know which of the forks on the table did what. At least the sisters had learned quickly when Marc told them what they needed to do to get ahead.
“I’m working on one fundamental assumption that you should pause and reconsider,” Zorge said, at once vague and specific. “You are now seven foot two. Dankworth is only six foot one, from what you’ve said, and thus will stand out as a very short Vanir, anywhere he goes. My presumption is that Morty and Xiomber, being geneticists, will want to do the same thing to him as they did to you, possibly with a five percent increase in his physical capabilities, if that’s possible.”
“That was my thought, as well,” Marc agreed. “I don’t see him becoming an Elohynn, as interesting as the symbolism of that would be.”
“Sir?” Maiair asked, obviously a little lost at the turn of phrase.
“Back home, one could make the case for me as the Fallen One of one of our primary religions,” Marc said. “An angel who was cast out of heaven. A man who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. Giving Gareth Dankworth wings would make him over into Michael, the warrior archangel. Rather fitting, all things considered, but not worth discussing at this time.”
“Right,” Zorge said. “But that brings me to a possible logical fallacy. Would he try to outthink us by turning himself into a Nari, or a Grace? He could walk right up to this table, disguised, and none of us would be the wiser.”
“I don’t think so,” Marc said, racing the newly-enlarged confines of his mind back over the years he had spent next to the man who had once been his best friend and greatest rival. “His ego would never let go of being human, so he’ll want to stay as close as possible to that baseline. Vanir are the best place to look.”
“Good,” Zorge looked relieved. “I have my teams out pounding the pavement, looking for shadow-shops that specialize in that level of genetic modification. There aren’t many, and we have to approach them quietly enough, politely enough, so that we don’t burn bridges later with any of them that aren’t hiding our prey. Second question. Do we think they went to ground on Hurquar?”
“It is an interesting parlor game,” Marc replied. “They didn’t want to bring him to Zathus, because that was our base and I have fingers everyplace they might have wanted to hide. They didn’t stay long on Orgoth Vortai. Really just enough time to distract us and vanish. My guess is that their ultimate goal was Hurquar and no farther, at least until we find them, or the cops do. They’ll need time to do whatever they have planned, so they needed to get ahead of us, but they have to stop running at some point so as to complete the work. After that, they can hide better. Yuudixtl and Vanir are two of the most common, least-insular species in the Accord. What do the authorities know?”
That last in a quieter voice as their waiter swooped by to refill water, replace bread, and pour more wine. This place really was top notch. Marc couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten bread that good.
Possibly Gareth’s mother’s bread, at a winter break celebration, but that would have been nearly eight years ago. He would have to come back to this town more.
“They got really quiet, there at the last on Orgoth Vortai,” Maiair took up the thread. “We’re facing Senior Constable Jackeith Grodray, one of Cinnra’s worst enemies, and his new partner, Eveth Baker, another Vanir like Grodray.”
“How good is Grodray?” Marc asked. “I’ve read Cinnra’s notes, but he left out too much and self-aggrandized with the rest.”
“He’s good,” Maiair replied. “Came close to unraveling us on a couple of occasions, back in the old days, when Cinnra first deposed Jeffrak and hadn’t gotten rid of all the trouble-makers with axes to grind. Forced us to go much deeper underground than we ever had been before.”
“Grodray’s not the problem,” Yooyar injected. “Baker is.”
“How so?” Marc turned his attention to the youngest member of the gang, both in age and seniority. But the latter was just a matter of time, as he stared to recruit again. Then, she would suddenly be in the middle and need some responsibilities, to see if her natural talents could be honed down and polished into something like her sister.
“Grodray is methodical,” Yooyar said. “Slow, careful, numbers-oriented. According to some of the old timers, he actually tracked us down with bank statements, wading through all the different transactions as we laundered things, spending a year just reading printouts. That’s well and good. We learned to hide better. Baker is all action. She’ll be the one that kicks in the door and stuns everyone in the room just so nobody gets away while she sorts out villains from innocent bystanders.”
“Interesting,” Marc observed. He turned to Zorge with a thin, cold smile. “When you nail down a probable target chop shop, let’s feed the constables an anonymous tip. I want to see these two in action so I know what to prepare for. We know they’re here. But they’ve gone to plainclothes work, so tracking them is harder. Let’s flush everyone out at once.”
“Understood,” Zorge said.
Further conversation ceased as the food arrived. Marc considered the two pounds of rare steak in front of him, with all the fixings. He had rarely eaten this well back on Earth. At least not since he got drummed out of the Sky Patrol.
Maybe he needed to bring in a few more folks from the old neighborhood, once he was well and firmly in control around here. The Accord of Souls was an old lady walking home in a poorly-lit alley, just waiting to be mugged.
Maybe Marc needed to make himself king.