Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (47 page)

Next to the madman's left hand Finch saw a little round carving.
He picked it up. Crudely drawn, but unmistakably Stark's face, with its
sharp features. The deep-set eyes.

Rathven telling him,"You have to choose a side, Finch. Eventually you
have to choose a side, even if you pretend to be neutral. Even if you think
giving out information is like selling smokes or food packets."

Through his fuzziness, a terrible thought.

Dropped the carving. Hobbled fast up the steps.

At Rathven's door. One more time. Only it was open now. Had forced
the Lewden Special into his left hand, over the bandaged finger. Held
the sword in his right.

Hobbled inside, trying to focus his fading attention. Through the
hallway. Entered the room ringed by bookshelves. In one chair, facing
him, Bosun. He'd abandoned his custom-made revolvers. Held a fungal
gun on Rathven. Her back was to him, but he could see her raised
arms. The glint of her own monstrous revolver. A standoff.

"You are fucking late," Bosun said. "We've been waiting for awhile."

Didn't reply. Just walked around until he stood to the right side of
them both. Bosun's bald head was bloodstained. Other people's blood?
A yellowing bandage over his shoulder where Finch had clipped him.
A nervous tic working its way across the corner of his left eye. Wore a
dark shirt and darker pants, tucked into boots. Taken from a Partial?
Some perverse form of camouflage?

Rathven was pale but composed. Gaze never wavering from Bosun.
The battered old gun trembled only a little in her grip. A smell of
sweat and fear came from both of them.

"Finch!" Relief in Rathven's voice. That someone was there. That she
wasn't alone with the madman. "I didn't let him in. He took me by
surprise." As if Finch might, even now, accuse her. Stress crackling into
her voice as she glanced over. "But he didn't know I had the gun..." Her
look turned to dismay at his condition.

"This is my fault, Rathven," Finch said. "I'm sorry."

Bosun: "Your fault? Because you didn't kill me when you had the
chance?" An odd expression of sadness and contempt.

Not for lack of trying.

"No, because I ever went after you. I should've left you alone."

A snort from Bosun. "I don't believe you."

I don't believe myself.

The fungal gun complicated things. Even if Finch got a shot in first,
Bosun's gun could go off in an unexpected way. Infect them both.

"Where's Stark?" he asked. Knew the answer. Had to start
somewhere.

Flat, emotionless: "Gone, but you knew that. You didn't hide him
well enough. I found him all crumpled up in the alley, thinking he was
someone else. Then he died. There was nothing I could do ... He's
somewhere safe. For now."

A wave of dizziness washed over Finch. Let it come, bent at his knees
to stop from falling. As if he were back on the boat with Wyte, heading
out to the Spit to meet Stark and Bosun for the first time.

Said: "I wasn't trying to hide him. I didn't want to hurt him. But he,
you, kept coming at me."

Bosun ignored that. "I came here to kill you, maybe kill her, too. I
still could." In a speculative tone. Like weighing whether to skip stones
across a river or keep their smooth weight in his pocket.

"You didn't bring your muscle." To remind him it was two-to-one
odds.

A sharp, curt laugh from Bosun. "No muscle left. They wouldn't
follow with Stark gone. Now it's just like old times. Or would have
been."

Finch, in an even tone: "Why don't you just leave? No one gets hurt
then. Because you'll get hurt even if you manage to take out one of us.
You know that."

Could see Rathven was having a harder and harder time holding on
to the revolver. Didn't want her to drop it. No idea what Bosun would
do then. Even with Finch ready to put a bullet in his head.

Bosun looked up at Finch for a second. Nothing there but a low
animal cunning. But unmoored somehow. The eyes older than before. "Here's a deal for you: give me the memory bulb powder and then I'll
leave." Could sense the intent.

Something in Finch rebelled at that. Wyte resurrected, even as a
shadow. Along with Stark and Otto. Each haunting the other inside of
Bosun's mind. Dead but not put to rest.

"That might drive you insane, Bosun. All kinds of things might happen."

"He's my brother!" A shriek. A scream. Something horrible and lost
rising out of Bosun. Finger twitching on the trigger. Finch saw now the
incredible control Bosun was exerting over his own impulses. To kill. To
strike out. Weighed against that the promise of seeing his brother again.
No matter how perverse the homecoming.

Could hear Rathven's sudden intake of breath in the aftermath.

Finch nodded. "I'll give it to you." Took the last pouch of powder out
of his jacket. Turned sideways, gun still trained on Bosun. Tossed it
toward the open door. "All you have to do to get it is leave."

Mouth dry. Legs still shaky. Holding it together for Rathven.

Bosun: "Tell her to put her gun down. And put down your sword."

"Rathven, put the gun down," Finch said. Let the sword clatter out
of his hand. Couldn't risk squatting to place it on the floor. Might just
fall over.

"I don't want to put the gun down, Finch."

"Just do it. I've got him covered."

She hesitated, then, hand shaking, placed her gun on the table
between them.

"Now I'll get up and move around you to the door," Bosun said.

"Be careful, Finch," Rathven said.

Bosun got up. Came around the table toward Finch. Stepping over
the fallen sword.

Gun to gun. Bosun inches away from him in that enclosed space.

"Let's not see each other again," Finch said.

A map of anger and frustration on Bosun's face. "No promises," he
hissed.

A hint of a movement as Bosun passed him, back to the door. A
blossoming agony Finch couldn't at first identify because of all of the
other pain. Then he realized it came from his side.

Knew he was reeling, losing his balance.

Bosun, at the door, stooping to pickup the pouch just as Finch realized he
was bleeding. Rathven lunging for her revolver, turning to shoot at Bosun
as he ran out the door. Missing. Tearing a chunk out of the ceiling. Rathven
scrambling to lock the door behind Bosun.

Finch looked down to see bright red blood welling up from a cut in
his side. Saw Bosun's long, thin knife there on the floor. It had been
the lightest of touches. Not even a touch. A whisper.

Vaguely knew Rathven was next to him as he slumped to the ground.
Felt the touch of his own sword against his exposed foot as he slid, her
arms around him.

"Finch! Finch!" Her voice, keeping him awake when he didn't want
to be awake.

She brought him close. Her body warm and solid and real. He
thought she was shaking. Realized she was sobbing. Then she was
pulling his shirt away from his side. Pushing something up against it.
Felt something wet and sticky next to his left arm.

"What's wrong?" he thought he asked.

"You've been stabbed, Finch," he thought he heard her say. Her face
way up near the ceiling, looking down. Her arms impossibly long.

A coughing laugh. "Have I?" A kind of lurching dislocation.

Rathven was wrapping something around his side. Gauze? Urging
him onto his feet.

"You're going into shock. I need to get you somewhere I can help
you," she said.

"I deserve better." A dry laugh. Everybody deserved better.

Lurched up, almost falling forward onto his face. Leaned into her.

Glints and glimmers in a dark pool. Past the battered, weathered book
stacks. Past her little kitchen. Past her bedroom. A glimpse of green
and purple. The brightness of a single bulb. Like a sentry.

A rough-hewn doorway. Water on the floor. Curved walls. Moisture.
A cockleshell of a boat. Strange pale-blue eyes of mudskippers in the
shallows. Glowing in the light from a lantern.

She said something to him he didn't understand. Took his arm.
Guided him until he was lying with his back against the prow, legs out in front like useless matchsticks. She took off the oars, began
to row.

Glimpses of roots, brick, and wood in the ceiling. His mangled hand
trailing through the water. The wound in his side like a rip in a stuffed
animal. All the sawdust coming out. Lulling him to sleep. Closed his
eyes. She shook him awake. Nodded at her as if she'd said something
he agreed with. But there was nothing left to say.

A thud as the boat knocked against something.

"We're here," she said.

Opened his eyes. Saw her tying a rope to a lock embedded in old
stone steps. Beyond, a worn archway.

She forced him to his feet. Helped him up the steps.

A single large room at the top, dark except for Rathven's swinging
lantern. Caught a glimpse of books, a table.

She led him to a cot at the far end. Fell heavily onto it. She asked
him a question. Didn't hear her. Fuzziness around the words. Drifted.
Curious about the dryness in his mouth. The way his vision kept
blurring.

Said, "The towers are changing. Need to get to the roof."

Rathven saying "No," forcing him back down onto the cot.

Blinks of light and time.

Fading and coming back.

A few hours later. Awake on the cot. Looking out through his good
eye. She'd cut his clothes off. Washed him. Bandaged his side. Could
feel the edge of the wound like a mouth as he lay there with a towel
around his waist.

He was at the back of a large room, looking toward the front and the
doors. The archway. Rich, burgundy carpet and rugs worn but clean.
The walls covered from top to bottom in bookcases. Every shelf was
filled with books. Perfectly preserved. In neat rows. On the floor, more
books. In careful piles. Beside boxes and boxes of black market supplies.

Next to him, medicine and food. Two more cots and another table.
A one-burner portable kerosene stove and a pot on this second table.
Along with a rifle and several boxes of ammo. His sword. His gun.

Between him and the doors: a globe of the known world on a
rosewood table. Four ornate wooden chairs. Rathven sitting in one of
the chairs. Watching him.

"I brought your maps down here," she said, indicating the table. "A
cane to help you walk. A chamber pot. A bottle of your whisky. You
need to stay here. Out of sight," she said. "You need to rest."

"Clean yourself up. Find someplace safe to be, Finch."

"What about Feral? Where is he?"

"I'll bring him later, if the boat doesn't spook him."

Outside, he could lose himself in the fight. Could join the rebels.
Could join the militias. Could do something. But, overnight, he had
become a broken-down old man. A pensioner well past the days of
pensions. Waiting for better days.

I am not a detective.

"What about the towers? Has anything changed?"

"Nothing. Don't worry-I'll let you know."

"What is this place?"

"It's an old library," she said. "From above it's just rubble. You can't
get to it. But this one room I found intact. Although it didn't have
many books in it to start."

"Found the rest?" he managed.

"Yes. I brought them here from all across the city."

?
"Why?"

She had the look of the true believer, of someone who still had
hope, as she said, "Finch, here you'll find every book I could salvage
about the city. Every book by any Ambergrisian author. Every book
of history, of politics. Biographies. Novels. Poetry. They're all here.
Much of it knowledge that was lost in the wars, because of the
Houses. Because of the gray caps. But someday, Finch, when all of
this is over ..."

Finch looked away. Ashamed by her passion when he had so little left.

"Ever afraid of being found out?"

"All the time."

"The cots?"

"Before they disbanded the camps, I'd shelter escapees here. Or
people who had been released but were injured."

"And now?"

"Apparently, this is now a haven for cynical detectives."

That made him smile. A little.

She stood. "You lost a lot of blood. But I stopped the bleeding. It's
your other injuries I need to work on now. I'm not strong enough to
turn you over. I'll need your help."

She got gauze, bandages, and other supplies. Water from the
underground channel. A kind of ritual and finality to the way she
set the supplies on the table next to him. That made him shudder.
Thinking of the Partial with his knives and scalding water.

She saw his look as she set a pot to boil on the little stove. "I have to
clean the wounds, Finch," she said.

He nodded. "I know."

She began wiping away any blood that hadn't already come off.
Ignored him when he winced. Stopped only if he cried out.

She looked different in that light. Older. Tougher. More experienced.

"I think two of my ribs are broken," he said.