Bridger folded himself into the piggyback seat, a bit too lanky to snuggle. “That’s really cool.”
“Yeah, it’s for moving injured people. This is the best coat ever, when it’s feeling cooperative.” At Saladin’s command the back stretched itself enough to cover his wriggling cargo. “Want me to take your bag?”
“No!” Bridger tucked the satchel carefully against his side as the coat fell over him. “No, I got it, and you have to promise to never ever look in it, okay? It’s a really, really secret secret. Mycroft wouldn’t want you to see.”
A chuckle of thinned patience. “All right. If there’s anything else you need before we leave here, tell me where it is in your cave, I’ll look for it.”
“Leave?”
I wonder what kind of tone Saladin would use trying to be comforting. “After I read the gore, I’m going to take you to some friends who have a safe house ready, somewhere far away where I can make sure whoever’s after you can’t get at you. Once you’re safely there, then I’m going to hunt Mycroft down and bring them back to us, no matter what. Sound good?”
“What kind of friends?”
“Some old criminal friends of mine and Mycroft’s.” Saladin stepped carefully, almost tripping over Boo. “They’ll take very good care of you, because they know if they don’t I’ll drag them into an alley, hack chunks off them, and eat them while they’re still alive.”
“I like that you’re honest. Most people wouldn’t say stuff like that in front of a kid.”
“I like that you like that. You know who Mycroft is and what they did, right?”
“Yeah. Mycroft doesn’t keep secrets from me.”
“I’m sure they say they don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What? Why?”
“I got snot on your shirt.”
A gentle, growling laugh. “Don’t worry about it.”
Watch my Saladin now as he slides soundless through the grass, his wary eyes ranging the walls, the bridge above, as a fish watches for insects it can strike, and gulls who might strike back. Have you ever been in the true wilds, reader? There are some still, the deep protected Amazon, the arctic fringes, parts of the Great African Reservation, not the retrogressive towns where warlords cling to their thrones and borders, but the dark wastes where the full spectrum of wild beasts roams in herds and packs, including that rarest hunter, man. Out there you are responsible for yourself, no cars, no cops, no restaurants, no good Samaritans. That world does not exist to help you, does not need you, does not care, and will forget you as soon as the brush has grown over your footprints. For scavengers, our cities are such wilds too: for the pigeons who feast or starve by callous chance, for rats, for strays who have never known the ritual of ‘feeding time,’ and so for Saladin.
“Is this the place, these plastic sheets under the bridge?”
A shudder prefaced the answer. “Yes. Please be fast, I can already smell it.”
Saladin released a slow whistle as he stepped through the tattered doorway. Red spattered the walls, and garlands of red crepe paper twined around the wreckage like toilet paper after a tornado. In the center of the cave, a manikin lay sprawled on the wreck in a red child’s wrap, with a long curly wig and paper entrails pouring out of a hole cut in her gaping gut. Her face, chest, and arms were striped with painted knife wounds, red trickling from their depths, so the paint-blood coated the books and toys beneath, the plastic food and doll clothes carefully stirred to let bright gore coat every one. “So that’s how you kill an imaginary friend.”
“It’s not less bad because they were imaginary!” Bridger cried out. “They’re still dead!”
“I see that.” Saladin tiptoed through the red and wreck with awe, like an entomologist through jungle, afraid of disturbing the morning’s perfect spiderwebs. “It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect, every touch.” He leaned close to a twist of plastic entrail and breathed deep, the smell of paint becoming blood salt in his mind. “Who did this, Bridger? I have to find them. You must know something, a name, a description? You said they left a note that you should meet them. Where? When?”
“I don’t know. I destroyed it.”
“You must remember.”
“You can’t go, something horrible will happen.”
“You’re forgetting what I am, kid. If there’s another liberated human out there, they’re either my disciple or my rival. Either way, this is a challenge.”
“No! I don’t want Mycroft’s best friend to get hurt.”
“I’m going to track them down anyway, it’s just up to you whether it’s going to be fast and easy or whether I’m going to have to comb through this whole cave for hairs they left behind. Not everyone has our special shampoo.”
The child whimpered. “Please don’t. Let’s just hide and be safe.”
Saladin took a long breath. “Bridger, did you ever see the photos of the Mardi killings?”
“Some.”
“Did what this person did to Redder look familiar?”
The answer did not want to come. “It looked kind of like what Mycroft did to Senator Aeneas Mardi.”
“Exactly,” Saladin confirmed, “this is exactly what we did to Aeneas Mardi, cut for cut. It’s a re-creation. Bridger, how many imaginary friends do you have? Seventeen? Eighteen? This is a declaration of war. After the stabbing of Aeneas Mardi comes the sound and electricity torture of Laurel, then the guillotining, then feeding Leigh to the lions, then Chinese water torture on Jie, European water torture on Makenna, and by this schedule Geneva Mardi would already have been on the cross a few days.”
“No! No, they already have the others! Aimer, and Pointer, and Nostand, and Nogun, Nogun’s been missing for two days! They’re not imaginary, either, they’re already real!”
“Then tell me the address. Either one of us turns up there, or your friends die like the Mardi bash’. There are no other options.”
“Dominic Seneschal. Paris, the alley behind Chateau d’Arouet, [XX] boulevard [XXXX], 20:00.” It was not Bridger’s voice. It was the Major’s, rising from the coat at Saladin’s back, as if from the speakers of Bridger’s tracker.
Saladin would have liked the flavor of that voice. “Who are you?”
“Bridger’s very short-tempered guardian angel. Can you kill Seneschal?”
“If I can’t, no one can. I do like hunting hunters.”
“Don’t mess around. Take them from behind, a shot to the back, an ambush, anything that will score an instant, certain kill. We can’t have that kind of monster around Bridger.”
The hunter’s eyes narrowed. “I’m a torturer, not an assassin. I don’t kill prey until I’ve given them a proper taste of death’s epiphany.”
“This time you have to. There’s too much at stake. Kill Seneschal and I can find the hostages myself.”
“I’ll kill them, but I’ll kill them my own way.” Saladin started to climb the wreckage around the paint-smeared corpse. “I don’t take orders from angels.”
Bridger whimpered as he felt Saladin’s body tilt. “What are you doing?”
“Last rites. You don’t want to leave your friend like this.” Saladin gathered the paper guts and fed them gently ‘back’ into the ‘wound.’
“We can’t burn them here,” the Major warned. “The smoke will draw attention.”
“I know. But we can do more than nothing.” Laying the body gently on the floor, Saladin scraped a handful of dry earth and sprinkled it over the body, muttering a few words of Greek.