Page 16 of Shades of Silver City

Squatting, Godric stares right into the man’s dirt-streaked face. He keeps eye contact without blinking.

“Climb the fire escape”—he jerks his head toward the building beside us and leans in closer—“then jump. Headfirst. Don’t scream.”

The man’s eyes glaze over, and he nods jerkily, but he presses himself up, yanks up his pants, and stumbles toward the building.

Without a word, Gdoric and I watch as the man mindlessly follows the orders.

Pulling a trash bin beneath the fire escape, he drags himself up the stairs and to the highest platform, at least ten stories up.

Without hesitation, the man dives off headfirst, cleaving the air with a bone-chilling silence. I turn away as his body lands, wincing at the sickening thud.

Bile rises in the back of my throat, but I choke it down.

No one moves for a moment. No one speaks.

A few tents rustle as people slowly crawl back into their shadows. Gagging and retching noises fill the air as someone yells out, “Gimme ya phone, Ferris, or call the damn Scouts yaself to clean this shit up!”

“We should go,” Godric says.

Nodding mutely, I stride away from the lot without a backward glance.

“You saved her.” He matches my pace. “She’s fine. She’s alive.”

“Fine?” A disbelieving laugh bursts from me. “She is not fine, Godric. No one in this wretched city is fine.”

“She’s a lot better than she would’ve been if you hadn’t gotten there.”

My chest rises and falls vigorously as I swipe a leather-clad hand over my jaw, shaking my head. “Not enough. It’s never enough.”

Today we were in the right place at the right time, but we can’t be everywhere all the time.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, man, but we need to look at the facts,” Godric says. “This ain’t normal. People are acting fucking crazy. Young people turning up dead. With no signs as to why—”

“I’m not assuming anything until Zeke gets back to us.”

“If it’s the dust again, man—”

“Then we clean it up again.”

A short while later, the shrill tone of my phone rings out, and my entire body softens in relief.

“That’s him.” I yank off my gloves, then whip out my phone and answer, listening raptly to his update.

“Ran the hair,” Zeke says. He chuckles. “Found some photos. Your mystery woman is bad. Why didn’t you mention she was so h—”

“Zeke.”

“Sorry, sorry, boss.” The clicking of a keyboard filters through the phone. “Eh, anything useful? Not really. Basic shit. The hair belongs to one Fantasia Foster, born AR three sixty-two to Claude and Amelia Foster. Parents died when she was only eight. She was lost in the foster system after tha—”

“Claude Foster?” I repeat, processing this information.

“Uh—” Zeke pauses, andmore clacking noises fill the silence. “You got it. Doctor Claude Foster. Looks like he was the—”

“Director of Faeology at Mesmeric Labs,” I mutter.

“Oh?” The telltale flick of a lighter reaches my ears, and a few seconds later Zeke coughs. “You know the man? His file is sealed. Can’t access it on my—”

“Thanks.”

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