Darkness Girl: Trickster God

Chapter Seventy-Four: Consolations of the Dead

In the grey, washed-out dawn the motel was a collapsed wreck. A Silverwater recovery team, dispatched to investigate the disappearance of the squad sifted through the ruins. The charred bones of the motel still smoked, and the recovery team sent up clouds of fine, choking dust as they raked through avalanches of twisted metal and collapsed rubble. It stuck to their sweat and left a thin coating of ash across their clothes. 

The fire had seared away plaster and wood like flesh being stripped from bone. The metal supports of the building stood obscene and exposed in the dawn light, a twisted, melted mess. Piles of tiles and broken mortar were mixed with blackened clumps of insulation, which crumbled to dust at the lightest touch. 

There were corpses among the ruins. Some of them were burned so badly they were barely human; others looked like they hadn't been human to start with. A corpse was found wearing body armour, the Investigator strike team insignia on his upper arm miraculously unburned. He had been cooked alive in the ceramic bath where he had tried to shelter from the fire. The recovery team carefully logged each body and burned-out vehicle. A harassed medic laid the bodies in rows and zipped them into thick polypropylene bags to be delivered to the investigators, and tried to ignore the smell of charred meat that coated her throat like oil. 

At sunset, there were still bodies being pulled from the ashes. They surrounded the site in transportable floodlights, which bathed the wreck in their harsh, halogen glare. 

The line of bodies continued to grow.

'Did you find what you were looking for?' 

Regan opened her eyes. She felt like she was swimming through cotton wool. She was lying on the floor of an office. There was a light above her that filled the room with a warm, inviting glow. The carpet under her fingers was thick and soft, like the surface of a cloud. 

She sat up and winced, expecting pain, but there was nothing. She looked down at her body. Her jacket and skirt were clean. 

'You look surprised.' 

Regan pushed herself to her feet in one fluid motion and reached for her sword. It was missing. 

'You needn't worry. You won't be here for long, I expect.' 

There was a man in front of her, sitting at a desk slightly smaller than a football field. His steel grey hair had been carefully combed and a silk handkerchief was folded into the top pocket of his suit jacket. He sat with the careful, upright posture of a man used to making heavy decisions. A man who could fire anyone else in the building at any given moment. 

A silver pen and ink stand rested in front of him with a slim letter opener shaped like a dagger. Regan looked at it and flexed her fingers. She knew there should be pain, but her muscles felt like they had been filled with liquid steel. 

The man smiled. He had smiled a lot in his life. The wrinkles at the edge of his eyes creased in a friendly, familiar way. The floor to ceiling windows behind him looked out onto the city. It was night, and the stars reached down to the city lights in an unbroken expanse of stars. 

'You don't remember me? I remember you, Regan.' 

'What the hell is going on?' 

'I'm not surprised really. We only met for the shortest time.' 

'I remember you. I killed you.' 

Mannering adjusted the cuff of his shirt and coughed as if the admission had embarrassed him. 'In this office. How much was my life worth, incidentally?' 

'I don't remember.' 

Mannering stood up and smoothed out the creases in his double breasted suit. He walked around the desk. Regan wasn't sure if he was about to shake her hand or punch her in the mouth. Instead, he picked up the silver letter opener and offered it to her. His cuff links glinted under the lights.