Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 45: Going Trench Coat
The government pays out a lot of money to pegasi to keep tight control of the weather, because the weather cannot be trusted to control itself. Despite the claims of climate control decryers, the environment behaves very irresponsibly when left to its own devices.
Not that it would be dangerous, so much as lazy. Climatologists currently believe that the weather would do very little of its own accord. Much of modern Equestria would simply be inhospitable desert and dry, cracked plains without any intervention from life, such as weather factory cloud distribution; after all, not even earth pony agricultural magic can overcome a long enough drought.
It is not known precisely when pegasi became predominant stewards of the weather, but if magic is vivogenic, then life was manipulating weather well before them; Studies have shown that even single-celled organisms are capable of microscale environmental manipulation. It is presumable that the unnatural weather patterns of the Everfree Forest and similar places are due to the uncontrolled action of the life therein.
This does lead to the other reason pegasi must control the weather; If they did not, then someone or something else with less benign or competent intentions potentially could. Windigos once harnessed dissent and turned it into the icy climes they favored. Other species have been known to employ weather in their warfare, of course - Fog of War is no metaphor in Equestria - but no one has managed it on the scale of the pegasi.
That brings us neatly to magical storms. History is littered with examples of weather turning against a population, but never so spectacularly as when magic is involved. Chocolate rain, a mild example, seems at first welcome, but ruins roofing and dogs very quickly. Enchantment was responsible for the Day Of Frogs, B.L 22 (Before Luna, 22 years), when the dragons found themselves inundated with amphibians falling from the heavens over their lands. The griffin delicacy known as ‘frog-legs’ was developed soon thereafter due to healthy trade with the neighboring plateaus.
This still pales by comparison to the November Rain of L.R. 36, during which a stray tornado - created by a pegasus attempting to weathermance his way out of housecleaning - hit an open magical gem-mine, and the dust from the mine was whipped into the atmosphere. For twenty nine days, the sky opened and everything from chickens to ponies from the other side of the planet were dumped over Equestria. Thankfully the injuries were few and far between, due to the careful attendance of Cloudsdale weather pegasi; However, for a period of thirty six hours, it could be said to be literally raining cats and dogs.
Controlled or uncontrolled, weather remains one of the forces that has routinely re-written Equestrian history to suit its own whims. Woe be unto he who thinks the weather is ever completely predictable.
-The Scholar
You talk to your friends. You talk to yourself. You talk to your dog. You talk to your boss. Every conversation is a little different, but always you’re saying the same things. I see you. I connect with you. I am awake and aware and I’m conscious that you are, too.
A lot of killers are always looking for that connection and never finding it. Police ponies look for the connections others are trying to make.
Every now and then, we stumble across a brand new connection, of a kind nopony has ever seen before.
****
“Am I still addressing ‘Gypsy’ or is this something else?” I asked.
Uncomfortable silence.
“What do you want me to say? You’re talking to your radio. I’m just the voice on the other end,” Gypsy replied, finally. “By the way...big fan! I’ve only caught snippets of what goes on when you’re in the car, but you four have been causing absolute Tartarus for the criminal elements of this city. Is the Don really dead?”
“You going to talk about it on your radio show?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Of course not! I’m here to do the good work. You guys took down the King of Ace and the Church of the Lunar Passage. How many of those psychos and rich jerks you’ve got locked away in Supermax would be out enjoying their murder orgies if you hadn’t been out there? I’m on your side, Detective!”
“What about letting it out that those ponies were missing, huh?” I growled. “I could have used an extra day or two before the police started looking into that.”
“Yeah... yeah, sorry. That was... I was excited, you know? Over thirty members of the city’s elite goes missing in one night? That was fantastic! Best news this city has had in years!”
“And... if I say we’re going to tear the radio out of this car the second I get a chance?”
“Please don’t!” Gypsy sounded a touch panicky at that. “I promise, no more slip-ups! I’ll run anything about you by you before I put it on the radio if it has anything to do with where you’re going or what you’re doing. Besides, I can only hear what goes on in the car and immediately around it.”
“Wait... around the car? Oh Celestia…” Taxi slapped herself in the face with one hoof, but managed to keep us on the road. “That’s how she’s doing it!”
“Doing... what, Sweets?” I asked.
My driver glared at the radio. “Gypsy... is bouncing her signal off police radio crystals! She’s been using our own comm systems! That’s why nopony could find her. She’s been broadcasting using-”
“-our own equipment…” I finished, pulling my hat over my face. “That’s cute. She can listen in on what happens to the police and our signal scanners just show our own frequencies. That’s where she keeps getting her scoops.”
“I... um... I... can neither confirm nor deny-”
“You’re a worse liar than my partner, miss Queen of the Signal,” I growled and she trailed off. “How do you know the Don?”
Silence reigned for almost half a minute. Gypsy might have been deciding whether or not she could trust me, or she was stinging from that particular barb. Most news ponies I know pride themselves on being fantastic liars.
“I knew him, but that’s... all I can tell you, really. He was a good zebra. He cared what happened to...um...to us.”
“Us? You make that sound like you’re not including yourself in ‘ponies in general’.”
“I’m a wanted person, Hardy. If somepony in power finds me, they won’t even bother with a trial. I’ll be dead. I embarrassed the mayor’s office. I embarrassed the chief of police. I’m almost as dead as you, if whoever is chasing you catches up.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any insights on who that is, do you?”
Something rattled in the background on the radio. “Yes and no. You’re on the right track, I think. I’m not sure. This law-firm...Umbra, Animus and Armature. You need to figure out who controls them. They’re near the center of things, but...I...yikes, cats and jammers, I can’t think just now. The Don’s really dead? How? His place is a fortress.”
“A traitor,” Limerence spat. “A traitor I intend to hunt.”
“I’m so sorry. You’re his son, right?” Gypsy asked, her husky voice full of sincere sympathy. “He helped me during a really rough time when I...I woke up from a coma a few years ago. He was really kind.”
“That is correct, Miss Gypsy. If my father was a friend to you, I would call on your debts to him. Do you have information that could benefit us?” Limerence asked.
“I don’t know about debts, but I do care what happens to you four. I gotta say, my sneak skills are less comprehensive than you’re hoping. One pony can only listen at so many keyholes. Still, lemme see...”
Papers shifted back and forth and a parakeet twittered at us through the radio speaker.
“Here we go! Alright, like I say, the law-firm isn’t the center of things. It’s just one spider in a web full of them. This conspiracy has something to do with the Shield organization and it’s old! Like, decades. Longer. Somepony has been planning something for longer than any of us have been alive. You need a clients list for Umbra, Animus, and Armature. If you can get that, you’ll have all the leads you could ever hope for.”
“And...how do we go about acquiring that?” I scoffed. “They cater to the worst criminals in the city. I doubt they’re going to respond well to a warrant for their retainers.”
“You’re the cop, sweetheart. I’m a disk jockey. You need music, I’m your girl. You need news the city would rather didn’t get published, I’m your girl. You need superhero stuff, that’s on you.” She hesitated for a moment. “Oh! Break’s over! I gotta get back on the mic! Call Telly! Sykes has a message and it’s important! If you need to talk to me, I’ll be listening to the car between nine and ten PM, every night.”
“Now, how… do you… know Telly… has a message for us?” I asked, slowly and carefully.
There was a long, awfully guilty sounding pause, then the radio gave out a spurt of static, and soft jazz started up.
Taxi and I exchanged a look in the rear view.
“I want to confirm to everypony this just happened,” I said, trying to keep the manic undertones out of my voice.
“You mean that the radiopony just talked to us, Sir?” Swift asked. “Yeah, that just happened.”
“Good. Good, I’m glad...No, wait just a damn minute! What in the depths of the pit was that?!”
****
Twilight dropped over the city like a drunken haze, bringing with it a pounding rain that felt like lead weights hitting my pelt. We’d run into an especially large puddle at the edge of the Skids that Taxi didn’t want to drive through lest we end up in an open sewer-grate, of which there were several, which left us an unpleasant walk. My driver had an umbrella hat and Swift, ever prepared, had a couple of rain slickers in her size stuffed in her pockets. It left me with just my coat and hat. Thankfully, despite the fights, the heaps of wild magic, and a couple of fresh rips in what was supposed to be almost indestructible cloth, my coat’s waterproofing enchantment was still holding up.
I held Nightmare Moon’s helmet tucked in the crook of my leg, cleverly disguised as Nightmare Moon’s helmet with a wet sheet over it. I was too tired to care. I needed to get back to the Nest. My heart’s light wasn’t blinking, but I still felt like I was seconds from passing out, either from exhaustion or stroke. Whatever enhancements Gale might have made to my cardio system weren’t counteracting the emotional toll of the last couple of days. I felt like a whole bucket of deep fried Diamond Dog shit.
A steady stream of water leaked down my collar, but it felt like a trickle compared to the mound of crushing sadness that I kept having to shove into a mental corner.
He’s dead. Another pony you loved is dead. Your world just got a little bit smaller.
Cheery.
A few feathered shades drifted across the rooftops, keeping up their constant vigil. For most ponies, the Skids were that end of town you just don’t like to think exists in your city. For me, it’d come to mean safety that money couldn’t buy. Nothing felt safe at that particular moment. How could I ever think of the world as safe if there existed monsters who could make an entire gang disappear in a matter of hours?
There might have been security cameras that caught the attack, but I somehow doubted it. The Don wouldn’t have wanted electronic eyes watching his comings and goings anymore than the assassins would.
I saw very purposeful movement out of the corner of one eye and glanced up to find Wisteria’s daughter, Jambalaya, shadowing us. She wasn’t being especially stealthy, but she was definitely moving at our heels.
Turning down our street, I met Wisteria standing with a group of Aroyos. For once, they didn’t look terribly friendly. Goofball was curled up on the sidewalk, snoring like a train engine, which rather ruined the moment. As we approached, he sniffed the air, then looked up and leapt onto all fours, charging over to us. Swift hopped into the air just in time for him to snatch her by the combat vest and lick her ferociously.
Wisteria, who’d been trying to look gruff, cracked a little smile.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” I asked, tucking the helmet of Nightmare Moon a little further behind my leg.
She drew in a reluctant breath. “De Ancestors say ye be needin’ to come to dem. Dey be worried. T’ings be movin’ in de city and dey wish to speak wid ye.”
“Yeah, well, they’re gonna have to wait,” I grumbled, trotting down the sidewalk towards the Nest.
Wisteria took a couple of steps to the side, standing in my path. She looked like she wasn’t very much looking forward to this confrontation, but then, neither was I.
“Crusada...dey say now-” She trailed off as she got a good look at me. “Goodness...be dat blood?”
I looked down at my coat and chest. I hadn’t realized it until she mentioned it, but my chest was a mess. Brown splotches of blood were caked deep into my pelt.
How many bodies had I moved? Lots was the short answer. Lots who’d died in nasty ways. I suppose it was too much to expect that I wouldn’t need a bit of laundering.
Mercy, am I really more shocked about the state of my clothes than all that death?
I shut my eyes and kept walking. “Yes, it’s the blood of an awful lot of friends; people who trusted me and died screaming. So get out of my way, Wisteria. I smell like death and I value your friendship. I don’t want to test it just because I’m tired and the Ancestors are feeling pushy.”
Wisteria’s wings shuffled a little, then she waddled after me as I stepped around her. Her guards seemed unsure whether or not they wanted to stop the crazy pony drenched in gore and so hung back, waiting for instructions.
Swift, who was scruffling a set of Goofball’s ears, flapped her wings a couple of times and landed beside me as the giant mutt joined her, nose in the air, ecstatic to have his best friend back. I noticed Shade Walk sitting up there, almost invisible against his fur, relaxing with her hooves behind her head. She’d strung a piece of fabric between two of the dog’s necks as a sort of makeshift hammock.
I listened to my driver and Wisteria exchanging a few words as they followed me.
“You look about ready to pop…” Taxi murmured as Wisteria stroked her stomach.
“I and I be soon ready. Today. Tomorrow. Still, I and I have duties. But what manner of dark ye bring back to de Aroyo doorstep? De Ancestors be speakin’ of shadows comin’ walkabout wid ye…”
“Trust me, you and yours will be safer not knowing,” Taxi replied.
“Dat be not a comfort. What be Crusada carry under he leg?”
“Shadows. Like I say, I think you probably should just...let him go for now, okay? I’ll make sure we talk to the Ancestors later on. Promise.”
“I...I and I not often be questioning de wisdom of de Ancestors...but I swear, since de day we be lettin’ you in, I question more and more,” Wisteria remarked, shaking her violet tail, irritably.
“Yeah, me too. I’m sorry we keep dragging this insanity back to your door, but if I thought there was another way, I’d take it. Incidentally, you know the territory near the Archivists?” Taxi asked.
The Aroyo stumbled, then quickly recovered. “We...we be knowin’ it. De sewer run many places. Be dat de reason ye come to us covered in blood? I and I be curious-”
“Let’s just say it’s probably best you keep your people away from there for now,” Taxi interrupted, putting a gentle hoof on the pegasus’ shoulder. “We had to lock it down and I don’t know if the local magical defenses are going to bother ponies underground, but they might.”
Wisteria took a deep, thought-composing breath. She shifted her juju bag up to one ear, then nodded. “De...de Ancestors say ye earn ye rest. Dey wait awhile. We be havin’ to speak of dis a time soon. Dey...worried and speak not to me of what it be. De Ancestors almost never worried.”
****
It was another of those showers; the kind where you want to escape your thoughts, but just can’t bring yourself to go ahead and open a vein to do it. I dropped onto my stomach and rolled over onto my back, letting the water pound on my belly, washing the blood of my friend away. I recalled the words of that ridiculous lawyer, Geranium or whatever her name was:
"I hope you find out one day when you’re standing over the body of someone you cared about just how far the consequences of your actions can reach!’
Paranoid parts of my brain wanted to think that maybe, just maybe, she’d known what was about to happen, but I found that unlikely. My therapist would have said I was simply moving the blame onto a convenient target. I like targets. Targets tend to be things you can shoot.
Poor Tome.
He deserved a death in bed at a properly old age, surrounded by his books and his knickknacks. Mob bosses tend not to get the kindnesses that are afforded to the lawful when they get old, but he had so many ponies who relied on him and his services. Sweets might not have been close with him, but I was seriously questioning how I was meant to proceed without the righteous old sonofabitch.
There it was, again; that question that just wouldn’t bugger off. The only good reason to kill Don Tome was to spark a gang war. His death alone was likely to cause a sort of slow-burning chaos, although he’d been thorough enough in life that it was probably going to be some time before the effects of not having him out there getting dangerous artifacts off the streets were felt. His death was still going to leave a power rift. Many, many ponies had owed the Don and many would want somepony to blame for his death.
Grabbing the soap, I began working up a good lather in my fur.
It was starting to become a regular thing to be covered in grit and gore. When had that become normal? What was normal anymore? Was there any hope for normal after all was said and done?
Do you want there to be a normal, again? I thought. Strange thing to consider. After all this, could I go back to a desk and a case file? Or would I just spend the rest of my life in a cell? Would it be so bad if I did?
Ehhh, Swift or Taxi or Limerence would probably break me out, whether I wanted them to or not.
I shut off the shower, grabbed a fresh towel off the rack, and began wringing water out of my tail, enjoying the peaceable numbness that seemed to have settled over my sensibilities. Another shower was running someplace down the hall and I could hear the soft sounds of a pony sobbing his eyes out. He was trying his damndest to be quiet, but some feelings aren’t quiet. They’re loud and they drag your self control through the mud. They leave you feeling like a worm for showing your weakness. They’re the last thing a pony should be alone with.
Trotting towards the living room, I paused for a moment at the door of the other shower that was running. At first I thought it was unoccupied, but as I glanced around I caught sight of a tuft of sodden blonde mane behind one of the low benches. Taking a couple of steps in, I found my driver and Limerence under one of the shower heads. Taxi was holding Limerence like a foal, forelegs wrapped around him as she gently rocked him back and forth. They both sat under the streaming water, the librarian weeping and every now and then trying to struggle his rear legs under him. Then she would stroke his hair, give him a little squeeze, and he’d collapse again.
For all my driver might have lacked for a mother in her life, she understands mothering like nopony else I know.
Taxi happened to glance up and saw me standing there in the door. I raised my eyebrows, questioningly, and she shook her head, making a discreet shooing motion with one hoof. I took the hint, moving off as quietly as I could and leaving the expert to what she did best.
****
The front room smelled like wet dog or, more accurately, like wet hell-hound. Goofball was sprawled lazily on his back, all three heads asleep. The middle one was using Swift for a pillow, though she seemed not to mind. She was snoring quietly, her wings wrapped around her like a blanket as she drooled on the page of an open novel.
Kids deserve their sleep. I left her there and trotted into the kitchen.
Juniper was waiting for me, sitting at the short little table, leaning on a beanbag chair with a cup of steaming coffee between his front legs. His dark green eyes followed me as I snatched a muffin out of the bread box, grabbed a plate and some jam, and joined him at the table.
My dead partner’s face was lined and handsome, with the same loose, easy smile he’d worn in life. He was even wearing that same wretched tie he had on when he died: a ridiculous maroon beast that clashed with his pelt, done up with rose embroidery. I’d given him that tie as a gift for his birthday. He’d retaliated by giving me cologne that would choke a skunk. I’d worn it every day until Chief Jade threatened to drown me in a vat of the foul stuff.
I studied him out of the corner of my eye as I spread an unhealthy dose of jam on my muffin and took a big, messy bite. He’d always hated watching me eat, but then, he was sometimes prissy about the weirdest things.
“Celestia save me, kiddo… at least use a damn napkin,” he grumbled, getting up and retrieving a paper towel from the sideboard He dropped it across my face and I wiped my muzzle. It felt real enough, but then, don’t most things when you’re hallucinating?
“Celestia didn’t do a thing for you, Juni,” I replied, hotly.
“Fine, fair point. Are we going to talk now or are you going to sit there and sulk?”
I stuffed half the muffin into my muzzle and replied, “Shulking shounds goofd.”
Juniper took a little pull from his coffee cup and made a face. “Bleh...this stuff you buy is garbage.”
“Don’t blame me,” I shrugged. “It’s freeze dried. We found a few cases in some of the back storage rooms.”
“That means that crap probably dates to the Crusades.” He got up and got the sugar bowl so he could mix in a couple of teaspoons.
“If you mix in enough cream, you hardly notice,” I quipped, slathering the other half of my muffin in jam. I gestured at him with my knife. “You want to tell me why you’re not playing the ‘appear in a mirror’ game? Have I just gone that crazy?”
Returning to the beanbag chair, Juniper lowered himself into it and propped his rear hooves up on the table. “Kiddo, I wish I had some answers worth giving you. Death don’t get you near so many perks as you’d think. That said, you need to get off your ass and go call Telly.”
“Is that my subconscious giving me tips, now?” I grunted.
“That’s your partner, giving you tips,” he replied, pulling a face. “I don’t have all the answers and somepony has gone to an awful lot of trouble to keep anypony... ahem... anypony like me from getting those answers.”
“Like you?”
“Sorry, that’s on the list of ‘crap I ain’t clarifying’,” Juniper sniffed. “It does mean I’m stuck with your sorry flank doing the legwork. What I can tell you is that you need to call Telly. Something big and bad is going down. Sykes is up to his fluffy little ears and he’s going to need your help or somepony is going to skin’im, pluck’im, and make a mattress out of him.”
I wiped a bit of jam off my mouth, then sucked it off my toe as I replied, “So, that’s it? I just get to go on wondering whether or not I’m actually nuts or if this is actually some aspect of my partner ringing me from beyond the grave?”
“Oh, Hardy, do you even need to ask?” he chuckled, wiggling in his chair until he was comfortable. “You’ve been crazy since the day I met you. Honest cops don’t last long without a streak of psychosis driving them. Still, take it as read that I’ve got your best interests at heart.”
“So, calling Telly to bail the big dumb chicken out of whatever mess he’s in rates higher than sleeping and mourning the dead, huh?”
“It rates higher than sitting here stuffing your face and craving booze. You decided what you’re going to do with the helm, yet?”
“Jeez, Juni, you gotta give a guy a rest...”
“Go make the phone call to Telly and those stupid spies,” he growled, then glanced down at his coffee cup. “And for the sky’s sake, buy some decent brew.”
Shoving the mug away in disgust, he got back to his hooves and strolled out of the kitchen, leaving me with all manner of worry and a lap full of crumbs.
****
The rain hadn’t let up when I reached the phone box.
I’d left my trenchcoat and combat vest back in the Nest, but taken my revolver along. Maybe some foolhardy part of me wanted somepony to take a shot at me. Maybe I was just too tired to care. Either way, I was soaked to the bone by the time I ducked into the little booth beside an abandoned convenience store at the end of the block.
I popped a few coins in, not bothering to count, and waited for a dial tone.
“Detrot Police Department. Is this an emergency?”
“It’s me, Telly.”
The line went dead for moment, then hummed.
“Alright, Hardy. This is a secure line. What’s going on out there? Did you have anything to do with all these missing celebrities?”
“Might have done, might not. Doesn’t matter. I hear tell from a mutual friend of ours that Sykes is looking for me?”
“Mutual... f-friend?” she stammered. “I mean, yeah, Sykes was trying to get in touch with you, but he told me to keep it quiet. Who do you mean?”
“Our friend who works in radio, capiche?”
“Oh Luna’s light, she didn’t…”
“Believe me, we will be having an extended conversation about her soon, but at this moment, I need to know what Sykes wants.”
I could almost see Telly’s lips tightening as she slipped into that professional state of mind she projects most strongly when she’s pissed off.
“Sykes...has apparently got family in the Hitlan and Tokan tribes. He’s up there right now, trying to unscrew the situation going on at the Moonwalk. If you talked to our mutual friend, then you’ve probably heard about it.”
I wiped a bit of rain water out of my mane and I replied, “Yeah, a bit. Some issue with the griffin tribes the mayor let stay in town?”
“That’s a nice way of saying they’re at each other’s throats. I don’t have all the details, but Sykes says he needs you. Not a clue why. Apparently there’s some griffin rule about guests that’s keeping this all from going pear shaped, but it won’t hold and you need to get down to the Moonwalk as soon as possible. Princess Celestia’s got a diplomat that’s supposed to be coming down, but a wild magic storm over the Everfree has shut down air chariots, train service, and teleportation out of Canterlot. It’ll probably be at least a couple of days before they can get here. Until then, we’re stuck with local resources.”
My cutie-mark twitched and a quiet worry started to take root in my stomach. We didn’t really have time for a detour, but then, nor did I have much of a plan besides calling up the bat ponies. That tingle in my cutie-mark is always a good indicator, too. A storm of wild magic sweeping out of the Everfree forests was just a tad bit too convenient, particularly if it meant the griffins weren’t going to have anypony there to cool their heads before bloodshed could break out.
Of course, I am the perfect pony for cooling heads.
“Send Sykes a message. Let him know I’ve got an errand to run, a nap to have, and then I’ll be on my way.”
****
The funny thing about the Skids is, when you’re an outsider, nopony will give you the time of day, but when you’re one of them, you might as well be family. As I strolled down the street, ponies tipped their hats to me and I returned their smiles as best I could. Strange to feel safe in such an impoverished place.
A young, former Ace-head with enough faded tracks up his legs to count a railroad waved from a bench where he’d laid a beautiful selection of cheap flowers. He tossed me one; I caught it in my teeth, then continued on.
Pulling the M6 walkie-talkie out of my pocket, I stared at it for several minutes, leaning against the brick facade of a heavily graffitied apartment building. I had an irrational urge to chuck the blasted thing into the sewer, along with the helmet.
We’d stuffed Nightmare Moon’s hat into a beanbag chair and slugged it into one of the storage rooms. Anypony hoping to toss the place was going to take an hour, even if they had some idea where to look. I could just pop back, get it, and drop it down the nearest sewer. Nopony might find it for months, if not years. Then maybe I could go live at M6’s warehouse. It was comfortable enough, right?
I pressed the ‘call’ button on the communicator.
“This is Hard Boiled. Night Bloom, you there?”
The speaker crackled for a few seconds, then Cereus came through. “Detective? Oh Celestia! Thank the skies! I thought we were on our own!”
“As it turns out I’m kinda hard to kill. I need to speak with Night Bloom. Our situation has changed.”
“Uh... y-yeah... ours... ours has kinda changed... t-too,” Cereus mumbled, nervously.
“You’ve been sitting in a warehouse. How much could things have changed out there?”
“I’ll... I’ll let Miss Night Bloom tell you, okay? I just got her sobered up and fixed her hangover, but she’s been crying an awful lot since... since we found out...”
A cold feeling crawled down the back of my neck. “Put her on.”
Hooves clip clopped on concrete, then I heard the sound of a crying mare.
“Agent Night Bloom, Ma’am?” Cereus asked, softly, like one might when speaking to a sad foal.
“What the damn s-sakes do you want? We’re doomed enough without you hanging over my sh-shoulder,” Night Bloom hissed, sounding weak as a kitten.
“It’s the Detective.”
There was a long pause, then Night Bloom’s voice as she snatched the walkie talkie from Cereus.
“Detective? Hard Boiled, is that you?!”
“Who’d you think it was going to be?”
“I dunno. Possibly Death calling. Death would have been nice…”
“Agent Bloom, what’s going on? You sound like you’ve been drinking.”
“I have been drinking! Landsakes, Hard Boiled, my own agency is trying to kill me and we’re stuck out-”
“Wait, come again?!”
I quietly begged all the stars that I’d misheard that.
“Oh...heh...yep. Sounds familiar, huh?”
“M6 is...is doing what now?”
“I got hammered and tried one of my contacts from an exterior office. I was wondering if he might air-mail us a pizza with a jetpack home attached. No such luck. This guy...he tells me something big and bad is moving in Canterlot.”
“We’re aware there’s been problems, but-”
“Problems, Detective? These aren’t problems. Problems are a broken warehouse toilet when you need to puke a whole night’s worth of vodka. These are catastrophes. I found out from my friend it wasn’t even supposed to be me going on this trip. Our head of operations picked me and the greenhorn against the Princess’ recommendations...and then vanished.”
“What, like...disappeared vanished or killed vanished?”
“Nopony has heard from her in over a month! This isn’t the first time she’s done that, so there’s no red flags being raised, but my friend tells me that he hasn’t been able to get in touch with the main office either. All the back channels have all been given orders to ignore calls from me and Cereus. It smells like a mole hunt!”
“You think somepony thinks you’re moles?”
“It doesn’t matter if they actually think we’re moles! A mole hunt is about isolating agents and seeing how they respond. If we aren’t moles, a real mole might reach out to us. If we were, we’d be isolated from the agency. The assumption is that the potential moles are being watched, but...dammit, it’s impossible! They can’t watch us here! It’s usually temporary, but that’s why they won’t field my calls! We’ve been cut off! I’ve got no way of calling the main office or the Princesses! Short of flying out to Canterlot and throwing myself in front of the palace gates, which I’m heavily considering-”
“There’s a storm,” I murmured.
Night Bloom’s voice was quivering with tension. “What?”
“A storm. A wild magic storm. It drifted in off the Everfree. They’ve shut down everything. Trains, teleportation, air traffic...”
We both sat with the implications of that for a long minute.
Bloom finally broke the tense silence.
“Detective...you don’t think-”
“The Everfree is a magical mess and has been for as long as anypony remembers,” I growled. “Could somepony generate a storm there that would cut off Canterlot from the rest of the country? I have no bloody clue. You and I, however, have a different problem.”
“A problem besides whatever is going on in Canterlot?!”
“Maybe related, maybe not. My cutie-mark is saying ‘related’. I’ve... acquired... the Helmet of Nightmare Moon.”
Bloom’s voice was full of relief for all of three seconds. “Oh, thank goodness-... wait... did you say the helmet?! Not the damn chest plate?”
“You heard right.”
“How in the depths of Tartarus did you get your hooves on that damn thing?!”
I took a deep breath. “Ruby Blue, the girl who was murdered...she stole it from Astral Skylark. Skylark snatched it out of the Royal Vaults... well, we don’t know when. It’s complicated, but I need a safe place to bury the helmet. You think the warehouse qualifies?”
“I...g-guess it might. There’s nopony within a fifteen mile radius of this place except some hydras and a bunch of timberwolves. Somepony wants to come out here, they have to know where the entrance to the underground is and, even then, it’s an insane walk down tracks that are full of all manner of wartime traps. I think we’re pretty damn secure, but h-how could you p-possibly-”
I interrupted before she could start demanding heavy explanations. “I’ve got a friend in town I need to talk with. Send the scrub to pick up the helmet. He can meet us on the edge of the Skids.”
“I...don’t...oh gods, how did you get...oh...Luna...no, heavens no...the helmet...I…”
She fell silent and all I could hear was frantic, heavy breathing.
Cereus came on the line a moment later. “Um...Detective? Agent Bloom is having a panic attack and I have to go take care of her. Could you call back?”
“Meet me in town in a half hour. I’ve got a package I need you to hide at the warehouse as best you can. If you’ve got an anti-magic vault or something, stick it in there. I’ll be on the edge of the gang zone they call ‘The Skids’, west of the Bay of Unity and towards the end of...lemme see-” I poked my head out of the telephone box and read the bent sign at the end of the road. “-Long Strider street. When you start seeing creepy looking voodoo crap on the walls, you’re in the right area,” I paused, then added, “Try having her breathe into a bag. Oh, and flush all the vodka.”
****
It was closer to an hour when Cereus showed up. I spent most of that hour strolling through the Skids, enjoying the rain. It was fairly warm out and getting soaked to the bone is one way of purging self destructive impulses.
For some reason, I kept expecting Juniper to put in another appearance. It would have been appropriate, somehow, to see him trotting alongside me. He’d always hated the rain. I always wondered if some part of the equine mind knows how it’s going to die, even decades before it happens.
I was on my fifth or sixth lap of Long Strider street, when I saw a drenched Aroyo stallion coasting in low over the pavement, keeping carefully below the level of the buildings. Turning, I waited patiently as he landed and trotted to a stop in front of me.
“Crusada! De’re be an strange creature to see ye!”
“Good, I'm expecting one. Where can we meet?”
Turning, he gestured down the street.
“L’il Miss Purity’s Diner. Beware! She stuff him stupid, ye let her.”
****
A quick five minute stop back home to get the helmet and my coat, and I was back on my way.
I hadn’t noticed L’il Miss Purity’s, mostly because the sign was gone, but also because the front window was boarded up. Despite this, the place had a decent mid-afternoon crowd.
It was a distinctly Cyclone joint and when you’re walking a gang beat, you start to look for the little clues that let you know when you’re in one. The two griffin war-axes mounted behind the pie case and the authentic hydra-bone dining tables did sorta give it away. Every inch of the walls was covered in paraphernalia from the Crusades and behind the bar, a griffin hen the size of a small car was wiping the counter with a towel that might or might not have been covered in blood stains. Her apron could have doubled for a parachute and was stained colors the eye is not meant to register.
A dozen laughing, talking, drinking Aroyos sat around the room. As I muscled open the sticking, wooden door, the crowd looked up and half of them let out raucous cheers or calls of ‘Crusada!’
It was awful weird to be that welcome in a place.
I shifted the sheet-wrapped helmet from one leg to the other, smiled as best I could and tipped my hat to them, hobbling over to the service bar. The surface had a few deep gouges in it that could be best described as ‘axe wounds’ and somepony had either given it a layer of sloppy lacquer or Lil’ Miss Purity believed in taking payment in hooves.
Hitching myself onto a bar stool, I pulled a stack of bits out of a pouch on my gun harness and laid them on the counter. I didn’t bother to count them. The griffin dropped her rag and strolled leisurely over to me.
“What can I getcha, sweetheart?” she crooned.
“Anything with sugar in it. I’m meeting somepony here. You seen him? Goofy little character, funny looking ears?”
The griffin I assumed was Purity dusted off her apron and pointed with one claw towards the back corner.
“Back’ere honey. I’ll bring ya yer meal,”
I nodded towards the bits on the counter. “Keep the change. Thanks.”
She gave me a deep belly laugh and pushed my bits back across the counter. “Yer money’s no good here, Crusada’. Go’on and git.”
“Thanks again,” I replied, trotting over to where she’d indicated.
Cereus was huddled over a plate of mashed potatoes you’d have to sled down, shoveling spoonful after spoonful into his muzzle. His brilliant disguise consisted of a hoodie pulled back from his fluffy ears and a set of fake teeth to cover his fangs which he’d taken out and left on the table beside him while he ate. A few Aroyos were giving him sidelong glances, but most seemed more curious than antagonistic.
“You wanna work as a spy, Cereus, we’re going to have Taxi give you some tips on maintaining a cover,” I grumbled, sliding into the seat across from him and dropping the helmet on the table.
“Oh! Detective!” He coughed, quickly swallowed, and gave me a toothy grin. “These ponies you’re staying with are really strange, but their food is amazing.”
“I know. You should try their curry. Granted, if you do, you’ll be walking funny for a week. How is Bloom?”
His ears drooped. “She’s not...she’s not okay. Finding out we were cut off...I don’t know. She cried an awful lot and she kissed me. That was before she got drunk.”
Cereus was, despite himself, a bit of a hunk and probably - from a mare’s perspective - pretty kissable, but the image of Night Bloom trying to smooch him mid-way through a panic attack made me a little queasy.
“So she’s a hot mess and...how are you doing?”
He thought for several seconds, taking another mouthful of potatoes before he replied, “I...I don’t know. It’s really strange. I feel like I should be scared and everything, but for some reason I’m not. I mean, what’re they going to do to us that they haven’t already done? Sending Agent Bloom and me out all across Equestria, guarding that armor that nopony in their right mind would steal anyway? I know that’s the sort of job they give to ponies they’re trying to make quit the service. It doesn’t matter, though. For one tiny few weeks in my whole life, I’ve gotten to do something that means something.” He nodded towards the helmet still wrapped up like a package waiting for delivery. “Is...is that what I think it is?”
“Yes...and you’re to go straight back and find the nastiest, securest hole you can drop this in. We might need it again, so make sure we can get it back,” I answered and he took the helm in his hooves, peeling back a corner of the sheet so he could see the purple metal underneath before tucking it back in place. “A tip from a friend says, ‘don’t put it on’. Keep it away from Bloom if she manages to get drunk again.”
Closing his eyes, he let out a world weary sigh that sounded an awful lot more tired than I’d ever pictured him. “I...I’ll do my best, Detective. I’m never going to be in M6 after this. I might be arrested, too. I know that now. I just wish I could have done more with the time I had.”
“Don’t count yourself out, yet, Agent,” I replied, reaching across to pat him on the shoulder. “You and Night Bloom are decent ponies and, if we can stop whatever is going on in this city, it’ll be a mark towards maybe having lives after all is said and done. I don’t want to die or get locked up any more than you do.”
“You think we could actually be okay?”
“I give it fair odds we’ll all be dead before the day is out. I’m doing my best not to let it bother me. Either way, you take that helm and get out of here. The longer it’s in the city, the worse I’m going to feel.”
Cereus dropped his spoon into the mash potatoes with a wet plop and rested his hoof on top of the helm. “I...yes, Detective. I swear, it feels funny taking orders from you...”
I cocked one eyebrow. “Bad?”
“No, but...different,” he mumbled. “You give orders like a doctor telling a patient they’ve got a horrible disease and they’ll be dead soon.”
“Lately? It’s felt like that. There’s an awful lot of ponies putting their lives on the line so an awful lot more don’t die.”
“Please, take care, Detective. I...I don’t know what we’ll do if something happens to you. We’re alone out here.”
With that, Cereus gathered the helmet up in his forelegs, dropped a few bits on the table, and left me to my thoughts.
****
Miss Purity delivered my meal and I sat there, stuffing my muzzle for the next hour. The food was better than it had any right to be and the crowd seemed to detect that I wasn’t in the mood for friendly conversation. Whenever somepony looked like they might give me more than a quiet greeting, Purity gave them a look that’d have a dragon filling his trousers.
That image of the Don’s corpse splayed out in his chair wouldn’t stop replaying in my mind, but I just kept eating, bite after bite, like a robot. I swallowed my last mouthful as the first tears started running off the end of my muzzle. My vision blurred and I hunched forward, shaking from head to hoof.
There’s nothing sadder than a broken down old cop crying over a banana split.
****
Limerence, Taxi, and Swift were gathered around the living room table when I came back in. I must have looked like nine kinds of the pit, because my partner let out a little gasp and her wings half-flared.
“I know I look like death, kiddies,” I growled, trotting in and slumping at the table. “We’ve got a job.”
“A...a job?” Taxi asked, cautiously.
“I called Telly. Sykes needs us. The situation down at the Moonwalk has gone severely south.”
Limerence, who looked none the worse for wear after his little breakdown earlier, lifted his nose a little. “Gypsy mentioned that name earlier. Who is this... Sykes, Detective?”
“He’s a friend of mine with a propensity to get in over his head,” I groaned. “He’s down at the Moonwalk as we speak and apparently he’s got family in those tribes of knuckleheads bent on confirming some of the nastier stereotypes about griffins.”
“What association with our aims could this sidetrack possibly have?” he asked, with a skeptical frown.
“Not a damn clue. My talent is telling me there’s something down there we need to know.” I turned my driver. “Sweets, you getting anything on that magical brain radar of yours?”
Shutting her eyes, she nibbled at the end of her braid for a moment then shook her head. “I don’t think that’s how my talent works, Hardy. Still, I was listening to the radio while you were gone. Doesn’t it seem awfully convenient there’s a magical storm around Canterlot just when the griffins are having issues?”
“Convenient isn’t the word I’d have used,” I replied. “I doubt we want to try driving the Night Trotter through a magical storm and the only other way I know of getting to Canterlot that doesn’t involve air-travel, teleportation, or walking isn’t precisely reliable.”
“You mean The Bull?” Taxi asked.
“Yeah...”
“I had the thought that we might use him and I had that friend of mine in the Essy office call his handler. The Bull is nowhere near Detrot and won’t be for at least a couple of days while he grazes.”
“Well, that option is out, then. Alright, it was just a thought. We’ve got time, either way and if nothing else, Sykes has some friends in the griffin intelligence agencies who might give us a heads up on what’s going on around town. Didn’t Gypsy say this mess has something to do with the Shield organization?”
“I think she mentioned something like that, yes,” Limerence mused.
I pointed a hoof at him. “Then that’s your job while we go see what we can do for Sykes. Get any information you can on the Shield. While you’re at it, hunt down anything we can about the law firm and...maybe see if you can poke around your underworld contacts. Get whatever you can on these ‘Biters’ that Cyclone mentioned.”
“I...will do my best. My state of mind remains... unstable-”
“First, we’re going to sleep a few hours and try to come down before we start working. It’s not like our situation is going to improve by running ourselves ragged.”
****
For all I wanted to sleep, it wouldn’t come. I just laid there on my back, one hoof resting on the cord to my heart while the other laid across my revolver. It wasn’t loaded, but I wasn’t about to sleep without it. Who knew how far this ‘Scry’ could be followed if I didn’t have my gun on me?
Maybe I’d led our enemies straight to the Don when I’d left my weapon in the car that first day. Was it a month ago? No, just a little over a week.
Granted, if I’d done that, why didn’t they wait for us at the Archive? If they knew we were coming, why not slaughter us in the street along with the Archivists?
It was a decent question, but I do my best not to let my paranoia get the best of me. I fail more or less continuously, but paranoid ponies live longer. And I’m probably going to live until the sun goes out.
****
I felt bad leaving Limerence to his research, but it was what he did, and he wasn’t in any condition to leave the Nest. I probably wasn’t either, but the alternative was another breakdown and I’d had quite enough of those. I’ve got to keep busy or everything goes to pot.
The evening air was warm and muggy, but the rain had slackened and the sky was a little clearer. I could even see a few stars, dancing at the edge of the horizon.
Listening to the engine growling, I glanced at the calendar Taxi kept taped to the back of the Night Trotter’s seat. Even though I was her only regular passenger, she did like to keep up the pretense to being a cabbie. I guess it gave her a sense of distance from the work.
It was a long drive to the Moonwalk and Uptown may as well have been a different city. Unlike much of the rest of the center of Detrot, there was only one ‘Uptown’ with a capital ‘u’.
Whereas the outskirts and projects were grimy pits and the suburbs like the Heights tended towards quietly ostentatious or gritty to the point they were only slightly better than the real crap-holes, Uptown was Detrot’s shining jewel. I doubt anypony really knows how much money mayor Snifter paid to make the twelve blocks surrounding Celestia St look good, but most of Detrot’s main strip could have been lifted straight out of Manehattan or Canterlot.
Majestic skyscrapers with clean windows and boxy, metal creations lit by spotlights stretched up to stroke the clouds. Ponies in all the most modern styles lined streets of asphalt so smooth you could ice-skate on it. Other cabs, though none with the howler under the hood that the Night Trotter had, lined the road in front of a theater so posh it didn’t even have a name. It was simply ‘The Theater’.
For all the poverty out in the real world, uptown Detrot was a skillful masquerade of elegance for the few visitors uninterested in vice or vainglory. It was only a few block’s length, but it contained more banks, spas, and five star restaurants than any other part of the city. It also, only incidentally, contained City Hall.
I hated anytime I was required to be near uptown with a bloody minded passion.
My teeth ground as cheerful tunes played from a nearby coffee shop and a stallion with a top-hat strolled with his top-shelf mistress down the avenue, noses high. In an alleyway between two buildings, three children crouched beside a garbage can. Usually the Uptown patrol would pick them up quick, but now and then a wiley foal from the projects could sneak in.
I watched as the couple strolled by and the little unicorn in the bunch - who looked like she’d barely gotten her cutie-mark - shut her eyes and concentrated. The stallion’s wallet lifted itself out of his back pocket and drifted into the alley.
I smiled to myself; she and her friends were going to eat well tonight. Served him right for thinking he was too rich for magic proofing on his wallet.
A nervous part of my brain was howling that the whole area reminded me of something. Granted, it was the sort of place they design in textbooks for aerial ambushes, but that wasn’t the worry tickling my nerves. Maybe it had something to do with my cutie-mark, which hadn’t stopped fizzing since that call from Telly.
The Moonwalk loomed up ahead.
****
Where the High Step was a gaudy mess designed to appeal to the vacationing upper-middle class with more money than sense, The Moonwalk was built to appeal only to the truly rich. What separates a rich person from a person with a bit more money than average is one single characteristic; a desire for quiet.
The truly rich - which is to say those who make and then keep their money - rarely live lives of great extravagance. More often, they spend their wealth on finding ways to make life easier, calmer, and simpler in the times when they aren’t out making more money. The Moonwalk was the embodiment of that ideal. Yes, it was big, but it had none of the gloss and tinsel of the tourist hotels.
From the outside, it looked more like a good sized office block. The floor to ceiling windows stretched up a solid ten floors, tinted black, suggesting permanence and control of the situation, whatever the situation might be. The only concession to style was the roundabout leading up to the front door, which was paved in cobblestone. Were it not for the three red-capped porters and a stiffly starched attendant standing beside a valet desk out front one might never know the place was a hotel. Whatever was going on inside, the Moonwalk was presenting its best face.
Taxi pulled in with her usual exuberance when she’s sure she can offend some uptight toff, which is to say at three or four times the speed-limit, braking hard enough to leave a four meter patch of rubber on the sidewalk, and ending up with one wheel straddling the curb. If her suspension had been anything but off an alchemist’s shelf, we’d have snapped an axle. As it was, Swift and I had to drag ourselves out of the hoofwell as the attendant scowled at us, disapprovingly.
“Sweets, one of these days you’re going to find something faster than you are on four tires,” I grumbled. “What are you going to do then?”
She shrugged and pulled herself from behind the driver’s seat. “I dunno. That’s what rocket launchers are for. What do you think Sykes wants?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied, shutting the car door and looking up at the Moonwalk. “I’m assuming he needs somepony independent, who these griffins won’t see as either a member of the Detrot constabulary or working for the other tribe. The sad thing is I know almost nothing about griffin culture. What I do know says that where their inter-tribal politics are concerned, these birds don’t play nice with others.”
I would swear to the existence of cosmic irony, because at that moment the sound of shattering glass reached my ears. I looked up to see the quickly descending shadow of a giant bird of prey heading in for a landing squarely on my face.