The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(11)
“So we’re not going to go looking for the rend?”
“Of course we’re going to go looking for the rend,” said Jackaby. “And the crown, the spear, and the shield. There’s too much at stake now to start worrying about little things like being brutally murdered.”
Chapter Five
The Mason Street Police Station was busier than usual. The typically quiet detention hall was packed with haggard officers processing detainees. None of the uniforms even bothered with us as Jackaby pushed through the crush and made for the hallway to the rear. We wound our way through the corridors to the commissioner’s office.
The dimly lit room was a sea of paperwork, atop which Commissioner Marlowe appeared to be keeping afloat by the sheer buoyancy of his enmity.
“Jackaby,” he grunted as my employer rapped on his open door.
“Marlowe.”
“Good afternoon, Commissioner,” I said. “Please pardon our intrusion.”
“Miss Rook. To what do I owe this”—Marlowe’s eyes flicked back to Jackaby, who had begun conspicuously leafing through a stack of confidential reports—“this visit?” He took the stack from my employer and deposited it in a cabinet behind his desk.
“We may need to borrow a few of your boys,” said Jackaby. “There is a—what would you call it, Miss Rook?”
“Cataclysm?” I suggested.
“A tad dramatic. But also accurate.”
Marlowe’s eye twitched. “Every one of my best men has worked double or triple shifts this week already. I have no intention of loaning out the few remaining hands I haven’t already exhausted. But out of morbid curiosity, how many of my officers were you hoping to borrow?”
“Some,” answered Jackaby. “Possibly most. Probably the whole lot, actually. How quickly can you get all of them assembled so that we can have a little chat?”
Provided proper tinder and dry kindling, Marlowe’s expression could have been used to start a fire.
“Please, sir,” I said. “We don’t mean to make things more difficult, but I’m afraid it really is of the utmost importance that New Fiddleham be prepared for what’s to come.”
Marlowe turned to me with weary eyes. “And what is to come, precisely?”
I opened my mouth, but halted, trying to find a way to explain the whole affair that didn’t sound like madness.
“Madness,” Jackaby cut in. “Chaos and war and pandemonium. Have you read the Book of Revelation? A bit of that. More monsters.”
Marlowe pursed his lips and placed his palms very slowly on his desk while we explained about the Fair King and the Dire King, about the Annwyn and the barrier, about the rend in the veil and about the end of the world as we know it. Marlowe listened.
When we were finished, he took a deep breath. “A year ago I’d have had you in lockup for wasting my time with an impossible report like that.”
“A year ago, I think you did,” said Jackaby.
“But a year ago my lockup wasn’t already full to capacity with the subjects of impossible reports.”
Jackaby tilted his head. “Come again?”
Marlowe nodded sourly toward the hallway. “You’re not the only one hunting monsters these days.”
“I knew Mayor Spade was on the hunt,” Jackaby said as Marlowe opened the door to the holding cells. “But I underestimated the size of his net.”
There were only three cells in Mason Street detention hall, two of which were now packed full of men, and the third full of women. Several more sad suspects sat waiting their turns in chairs across from the holding cells. None of them looked especially like criminals. One of the women in the far cell looked old enough to be my grandmother. She was wearing an apron still chalky white with flour. A pair of schoolboys huddled in the corner of one of the men’s cells, sniffling. A man in oil-stained overalls sat on the bench beside them, shaking his head and sighing heavily.
“This is insane,” Jackaby said. “I know Spade and his militia have been canvassing the city, but I thought they were like the butt of a bad joke the city was telling itself. I didn’t think anybody was taking them seriously!”
“Nobody was,” Marlowe said. “Public opinion had their whole operation chalked up to paranoia and superstition, until a couple days ago. The other shoe dropped when Spade’s guys finally caught some kind of imp yesterday morning. Looked like a naked monkey to me. They’re calling it the Inkling Devil. I’m surprised this is the first you’ve heard about it. They paraded what was left of the thing through the town on a stake. I’ve been doing managerial gymnastics trying to keep the rumors from throwing New Fiddleham into a panic, and Spade’s boys are putting on a damned puppet show with a real-life demon.”
“They killed it?” Jackaby’s voice was even, but I could see the dark clouds rolling over his brow.
“Spade called it a matter of public safety. He said he was raising awareness, needed to show the people the truth. A real live dead demon gave teeth to everything Spade had been saying in all of his speeches and rallies. Now neighbors are reporting neighbors and landlords are ratting out tenants. This is just the crowd we’ve processed since last night.” Marlowe waved a hand at the cells. “Spade wants every detainee thoroughly interrogated and documented. The paperwork is a nightmare. We’ll have to start shipping them up to Crowley Penitentiary soon. There just isn’t room enough in our jailhouse.”