Beyond the Blue Moon (Forest Kingdom Novels) (4 page)

The sun was just starting to rise above the horizon, splashing thick swathes of blood across the reluctantly lightening sky. The first birds were coughing on the sooty air, sewer rats were ganging up on the cats, and the latest plague was bubbling wetly in the open sewers. Just another day in Haven. Hawk and Fisher had seen entirely too many sunrises just recently. They’d been working a double shift for three weeks now, replacing a pair of Guard Captains they’d been forced to arrest. Captains Karl and Jacie Gavriel, another husband and wife team with a hard reputation, had been running their own private protection racket on their beat. Nothing new or particularly unusual about that, but these Guards became greedy, raising their price so high that even the hardened denizens of the North Side were moved to make an official complaint.

Hawk and Fisher were sent to investigate, and they wasted no time in establishing the truth and then lowering the boom on the Gavriels. However, the Gavriels refused point-blank to come quietly, and there then followed a certain amount of unpleasantness, not to mention blood loss and property damage, before Hawk and Fisher were able to subdue them. Karl and Jacie Gavriel were currently chained to their hospital beds, awaiting trial, while the same people who’d made the original complaint were now threatening to sue Hawk and Fisher over the property damage. As a reward for bringing in their crooked compatriots, Hawk and Fisher were required to cover the Gavriels’ shift in the North Side as well as their own, until replacements could be arranged.

No good deed goes unpunished in Haven.

“The Gavriels,” said Hawk, brooding. “They’re part of what I’m talking about. About what living in Haven does to you. They were clean once. Good thief-takers. Are they our future? Are they what we could become?”

“We’re nothing like the Gavriels,” said Fisher firmly. “You worry too much, Hawk.”

“One of us has to. You know, more and more it seems to me like we haven’t really accomplished anything, for all our time in Haven. Name one thing we’ve really changed for the better. Oh, we’ve caught a lot of bad guys, and killed even more. But Haven’s still Haven. The North Side’s still a cesspit of poverty and despair. The same old evils are still going on, the same poor bastards are still suffering every day. We’ve changed nothing.”

Fisher adjusted the knuckle-duster under her glove, and tried to see where Hawk was going with all this. “We’re doing well just to keep the lid on things. You can’t hope to put right centuries of ingrained evil and corruption in just a few years. We’ve made an impression. Stopped a lot of bad things, and bad people. Even saved the whole damned city more than once. We’ve done our best.”

“But who have we become in the process? Sometimes I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize the man looking back at me. This isn’t who I wanted to be. Who I meant to make of myself.”

Fisher stopped walking, and Hawk stopped with her. She looked at him directly, face to face, deep blue eyes meeting his unflinchingly. “So what do you want to do, Hawk? Just turn our backs and walk away, leaving the good people undefended? There are good people here. If we don’t protect them from scumbags like the Gavriels or villains like St. Christophe, who will? You can’t walk the straight line in Haven and expect to get anything done. We are what we have to be, to get results.”

“I used to know who I was,” said Hawk quietly. “I was an honorable man, and I led and inspired other men, through my own good example. But that was a long time ago.”

“No,” said Fisher. “That was yesterday.”

They looked at each other for a while, remembering. Finally Fisher sighed and looked away. “We were younger then. Idealistic. Maybe … we just grew up.”

At that point someone was dumb enough to try and steal Fisher’s purse. Had to be someone new to the city. He’d barely gotten his hand around her purse before Fisher punched him out without even looking around. This would-be cutpurse hit the ground hard, his eyes unfocused. Somehow he got his feet under him, and staggered away. Fisher was so surprised, she let him go.

“Damn. I must be getting old. They never used to get up after I hit them.” She shook her head then turned back to Hawk. “Look, Hawk, we do what we can. You can’t clean up the North Side with just brute force. Even I know that. The sorcerer Gaunt tried that approach with the Devil’s Hook, using his magic and the threat of his reputation, but it didn’t last. Things slipped right back to their bad old ways the moment Gaunt left the city. The nature of the North Side is mostly determined by its absentee owners, be they landlords or drug lords, and all of them are out of our reach. The law is nothing in the face of political connections. We could fight them, but we’d be on our own. No other Guard would join us. Hell, they’d probably be ordered to stop us. It would be just you and me, against impossible odds.”

Hawk smiled slightly. “That never stopped us before. When we knew we were right.”

“Perhaps not,” Fisher conceded. “But if we were going to take on established villains like St. Christophe and his army of bodyguards, I’d need a hell of a good motivation. I don’t think I believe in miracles anymore. This is Haven. It doesn’t want to change.”

Hawk shrugged and looked away. “Maybe I’m just feeling my age. Turning thirty-five shook me. That’s maybe half my life gone. I don’t feel old, but I don’t feel
young
anymore. Some days its feels like I’m on the downhill slope now, and I’m running out of time to do all the things I meant to …”

“And you’ve got a bald patch.”

“I know! Trust me, I know! I’m beginning to wonder if I should get a hat to cover it.”

“You hate hats.”

“I know!”

They continued on their way again, walking side by side in thoughtful silence. People came and went around them, saw their frowning faces, and gave them even more room than usual. Quite a few decided to call it an early night, and went home to hide until Hawk and Fisher had calmed down again.

“I find it harder to care about things these days,” Fisher said finally. “When you see the petty evils of Haven repeated over and over in front of you every day … it wears you down. Even the sharpest blade will dull if you slam it against an unyielding surface often enough.”

“There was a time when what we did mattered,” Hawk said stubbornly. “And so, we mattered. We had purpose, and ideals. And what we did changed the world for the better.”

“That was long ago,” said Fisher. “In another land. We were different people then.”

“No,” said Hawk. “That was yesterday.”

And then they both stopped in their tracks, as a call from the Guard communication sorcerer filled their ears. First a burst of pleasant flute music, to get their attention. It used to be a gong, but that rattled Hawk’s back teeth so much that he went and had a private but very forceful word with the communications sorcerer, and after that it was flute music. Hawk was very popular with the other Guards for a while.

“All Guards, hold for an important message,” said a calm voice in the back of their heads. It used to sound just behind their eyes, but too many people found that unnerving. “All Guards, hold for an urgent message.”

“Damn,” said Fisher as a simplistic syrupy guitar melody filled their heads. “Why do they always have to play such crappy music?”

“I think it’s a franchise,” said Hawk. “Lowest bidder and all that. Don’t worry until you start enjoying the music.”

“All Guards report to the main docks, in the North Side,” said the sorcerer’s voice, cutting abruptly across the guitar music. “Striking dock workers are gathering in large numbers. Probability of riots. All Guards to the docks, and prepare for action. No exceptions.”

The communication broke off and Hawk and Fisher looked at each other. “I thought things would get out of hand in the docks eventually,” said Fisher. “Lot of angry people there.”

“I hate riots,” said Hawk. “You never can tell what a mob will do when it gets the bit between its teeth. People in a mob will do things they’d never dream of on their own. They might even forget to be afraid of us.”

“No one’s
that
stupid,” said Fisher.

They changed their direction and strolled unhurriedly toward the Devil’s Hook and the adjoining docks.

“Strange they didn’t call us in before,” said Hawk. “I mean, we are the closest Guards to the scene.”

“But the docks aren’t our beat,” said Fisher. “Presumably the Guards on the spot thought they could manage, and then had their minds changed in a hurry when the crowd started turning into a mob.”

“Always good food to be had down by the docks,” Hawk said thoughtfully. “Maybe we could pick up something tasty for dinner while we’re there. But no more crab meat; that last batch gave me a really nasty rash.”

“I remember,” said Fisher. “Two degrees of temperature, and you thought you were dying.”

“And no lobsters, either. They always want you to choose a live one, and then I feel too guilty to enjoy it. Besides, all those long wavy legs and antennae make me queasy. Far too much like some of the demons we fought in the long night.”

“There’s always the sea slugs,” said Fisher, just a little maliciously. “You know, those long white things. Always lots of meat on them.”

“I am not eating something that looks like it’s just dropped out of a whale’s bottom,” said Hawk firmly.

“You never want to try anything new. Though admittedly, it must have been a brave or bloody hungry man who ate the first sea slug.”

They crossed over into the Devil’s Hook, the dark and seedy heart of the North Side, where crime and general wickedness were condensed through grinding poverty and desperate need into conscienceless violence and pure evil. The dilapidated buildings in that square mile of slums were crammed close together on either side of dark narrow streets, each filthy room packed with as many people as the floor could bear. There were few street lamps, mostly just flaring torches, and the streets were thick with refuse. Beggars huddled under threadbare cloaks, one hand held mutely out for whatever fortune might provide. People hidden behind hoods strode purposefully down the dark streets, looking neither to the left nor the right, ignoring each other as they went about their private business. They still managed to give Hawk and Fisher a wide berth, though.

The two Guards strolled through the deadly street, apparently entirely unconcerned, and calmly discussed the current situation in Haven’s main docks. The dockworkers’ guild was mad as hell, not for the first time, because the dock owners, Marcus and David De Witt, had brought in zombie scab labor to break the ongoing strike by all dock-workers. They were striking because three men had been killed, and five crippled, by a collapsing dock structure. Everyone knew the docks were in a terrible state, but repairing and making them safe would cost a lot of money, which the De Witt brothers didn’t feel like spending until they absolutely had to. They also professed no interest at all in paying compensation to the aggrieved families of the dead and injured workers. The guild threatened a strike on the families’ behalf. The DeWitts told them all to go to hell, the dockworkers went on strike, and the DeWitts brought in zombies. Lots of them.

The DeWitts had also been using their private guards to crack down on the workers smuggling goods out of the docks, thus cutting into the dockworkers’ long-established money-raising ventures. Half the drugs in Haven came in through the docks, and the dockers always made sure they got their cut. It was one of the few good reasons for being a docker. Nothing was ever simple in Haven.

Hawk and Fisher knew all this. The Devil’s Hook and the docks might not be their beat, but it was their nearest neighbor. So they made it their business to keep an eye on things. Because you never knew when neighbors might come visiting. If the dockworkers’ troubles spilled over into the North Side, Hawk and Fisher wanted to be prepared.

There had been a bill before the city council to force the dock owners to provide safe working conditions, but the bill’s proposer, Councilor William Blackstone, had been murdered, and his bill died with him. So far, no one else had proved brave or ambitious enough to challenge the very wealthy and very well-connected DeWitt brothers. Hawk and Fisher had been Councilor Blackstone’s bodyguards. They’d failed to keep him alive.

They passed deeper into the Devil’s Hook. People were crowding the gloomy streets now, despite the early hour. The kind of businesses that operated in the worst slums of Haven never closed. You could find or buy anything, including the pleasures that might not have a polite name, but certainly had a price. On the slightly more respectable front, there were sweatshops everywhere; whole families crowded into a single room, working twelve-or fourteen-hour days, every day, creating goods for a few pence that would sell for a few ducats in the finer parts of the city. Everyone in the family worked, from the grandparents down to the smallest children. Some were born, lived their short lives, and died in those grimy single rooms, never leaving the only world they knew. Company representatives took care of their few needs, at fixed prices, and discouraged anything that might interrupt the family’s work. Everyday business in the Devil’s Hook.

There were hotels that rented rooms by the half hour, and simple doss houses, ranging from flea-infested mattresses laid side by side on a communal floor, to the darkened rooms where a penny brought you the right to sleep standing up in a queue, with ropes under your arms to support you. They really crammed them in such establishments, and no one objected, because at least the warmth of crammed-together bodies was better than the cold of the streets. And everywhere, the beggars; lining the streets like so much discarded furniture, or so many broken and thrown-aside toys. They held out bowls if they had them, or hands if they didn’t, showing off their various deformities to their best advantage. Some were birth defects, or the result of disease or war, but others had deliberately disfigured themselves, or their children, through cunning artifices or cheap back-street surgery, to tug more efficiently at the heartstrings of those who passed, on their way to the docks. Like everything else in the Devil’s Hook, begging was a harshly competitive business.