Limbus, Inc., Book III Read online

  LIMBUS, INC.

  BOOK II

  A SHARED WORLD EXPERIENCE

  Seanan McGuire

  David Liss

  Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Jonathan Maberry

  Laird Barron

  Edited by Brett J. Talley

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Copyright © 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  JournalStone

  www.journalstone.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-942712-78-7 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-942712-80-0 (e-book)

  ISBN: 978-1-942712-79-4 (hc)

  JournalStone rev. date: July 29, 2016

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941828

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Design: Rob Grom

  Cover Photograph © Dm_Cherry/Shutterstock

  Edited by: Brett J. Talley

  For Anne C. Petty

  What is Limbus?

  Limbus is Latin for “edge” or “boundary,”

  but that’s not the whole story.

  Welcome to the world of Limbus, Inc., a shadow organization at the edge of reality whose recruitment methods are low-rent, sketchy, even haphazard to the ordinary eye: a tattered flyer taped to a bus-stop shed or tacked to the bulletin board of a neighborhood Laundromat, a dropped business card, a popup ad on the Internet. Limbus’s employees are as suspicious and ephemeral as the company, if indeed it could be called a company in the normal sense of the word.

  Recruiters offer contracts for employment tailored exactly to the job seeker in question. But a word to the wise… it’s always a good idea to read the fine print.

  Limbus, Inc.

  Book III

  A Shared World Experience

  Prologue: Drip, Drip, Drip

  It was five past midnight when Malone got the call. He hadn’t been asleep, even though it had already been a long day. Two homicides, including a little girl just past her eleventh birthday. After something like that, Malone needed a drink to even think of sleep. Probably several. He was already four in when the phone rang, sitting in an armchair in front of the television, scotch neat in his hand. Hadn’t even bothered to take off his shoes. He knew it was the department. He didn’t get many calls, especially that late at night. Sherrill had taken a lot in the divorce, including all of their friends. No one much cared to talk to Malone anymore. Didn’t bother him. He preferred to keep his own company. He liked to drink alone.

  But deep down he knew that was just a convenient lie. Malone’s burgeoning alcoholism was his way out, his slow suicide. He wouldn’t just put his revolver in his mouth and pull the trigger. That was cowardice, the way he figured it. Somehow this was better. Drink and hope his liver gave out one step ahead of Internal Affairs.

  Ten thousand bucks. It was both a lot of money and not much at all, when you thought about it. But it had been enough to pull his ass out of debt so deep he risked coughing up numbers. It was drug money, evidence in a case that had gone sideways when the main suspect was knifed in a jailhouse fight. A hit, most likely, not that they could ever prove it. So the money went in a storage locker, left to rot until the case was officially closed. Could be years. Could be decades. Could be never.

  Nobody would miss it, and he was foolish enough to believe that ten thousand dollars might buy back Sherrill’s love, or at least a part of it. Hadn’t happened, not by a long shot. Now the money was gone and so was she, while the Department had noticed it had a ten-thousand-dollar hole in its evidence locker. IA was on the case, and it was only a matter of time before they put the dots together and found they led directly to him. Then his 25-year career, all the arrests, the convictions, hell, the executions, would all be forgotten. He’d just be a dirty cop waiting to die, in general population with a bunch of guys who wanted to help him on his way.

  The phone rang again. Malone downed his drink, and answered.

  “Malone.”

  “Uh…sir, this is Williams.” The new guy, Malone noted, even if he had been with the department for almost a year. “We’ve got a situation up here on Ruffner Mountain, off of 83rd Street.”

  “Yeah, I know where it is. What’s the situation?”

  “We found something up here, I think you’re gonna want to see this yourself.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  Malone didn’t bother to ask any more questions. Williams was a good kid, and anyway, he’d been a detective long enough to know that they wouldn’t call him at this hour unless it was something special. And the way Williams’s voice had shook—well, he didn’t seem like he was in any shape to give details.

  The streets of Birmingham were deserted that Wednesday night. It has been cold lately, enough to keep the few who otherwise might have ventured out on a midweek excursion behind closed doors. And tonight the rain came down in sheets, soaking to the bone anyone foolish enough to chance the cold.

  The highway ran up and through Red Mountain, named for the color of the iron ore that had first brought people to this place. Malone took a right onto Runner Road, into the forest that had grown up around and over where the old Trillium mine delved deep into Ruffner’s side. The road was dark and empty. His headlights flashed across metal signs, painted in reflective orange, newly placed by nervous owners who feared litigation. On the top of the signs was the symbol of the Trillium mines, a Celtic rune called a triquetra—three curving, interlaced triangles made of one continuous line. The warnings beneath them were stark: “Danger! Abandoned Mine. Stay out! Stay Alive! Beware Subsidence. Ground May Give Away!” The number of exclamation points said it all.

  Malone had been up on Ruffner five years previous when they pulled a little boy out of those mines. It had been a miracle, they said, that he had survived, even if he did lose a leg. The signs went up after that, part of a settlement of the inevitable lawsuit. The company’d also promised to fill the old shafts where practical. Trillium had been pretty good at keeping their word, all things considered. Give them another twenty years or so, and they just might get it done.

  The road split ahead. The way left led to Big Easy, or First Shaft, a once giant, gaping, concrete maw that had been filled up right after the end of operations so that now you couldn’t go more than five feet inside. To the right, the Vertical. They called it that because that’s what it was. A vertical shaft that went some thirty feet straight down. The bottom was a staging area for two shafts that led off to either side, plunging even farther into the earth to the north and south. Men and material went down. Iron ore came up. He’d been told it was one of the last vertical shafts of its type left in the world. He didn’t doubt it.

  Nor did he have to guess about which way to turn. There was a ponchoed officer standing at the fork. He gestured right with an orange flashlight. Malone gave him a wave—partially out of pity as water poured down the plastic cloak—and headed to the Vertical.

  Flashing lights greeted him. Four squad cars were on the scene. Forensic van, too, al
ong with an unmarked. That was Williams, standing next to an officer named Carver who Malone recognized from the beat. Malone swung around to park beside them, and as he did the headlights of his car swept the scene. And in that one brief moment, Malone saw why he was there. Merciful darkness returned, but only for an instant before a generator fired up somewhere in the distance, and flood lights burst into life.

  Unlike Big Easy, they’d never capped the Vertical. They’d just thrown up a flimsy chain-link fence around it, assuming that the signs and the seemingly bottomless pit would be sufficient to keep the curious or the careless away. But someone had taken interest now, and they’d left something behind.

  She was hanging there, above the pit, her bound hands pulled up above her, stretched unnaturally long, caught by the hook that dangled from the aged, rusty crane that still kept watch over the abyss. The tattered metal roof above had kept the rain off her for the most part. A blessing.

  Malone approached. She was naked. His mind clicked down a checklist, clinically. He saw no identifying tattoos or major scars. Assuming there was no clothing or ID anywhere nearby, they’d have to hope for a fingerprint hit. Her breasts, chest, and stomach were painted red with blood that had once streamed, but now trickled, down into the pit below. The rain slacked, but the winds—less than gale force now but still strong—rocked her body back and forth, while the old machine croaked and groaned beneath her weight, threatening at any moment to snap and plunge her below. Malone stepped into a circle of four uniforms and Williams and Carver, all of whom gawked at the girl. Williams held a notebook, pen posed and ready to write, but the page remained blank.

  “Oh my God,” said Malone, as he joined the others. He’d seen a lot, but nothing like this. “How’d you find her?”

  “Luck,” said Williams, still not looking away. “Call came in a little after eleven. Kids, probably up here drinking.”

  “In weather like this?”

  Williams shrugged “They didn’t leave a name or nothing. Thought it was probably a prank. Uniform came up to check anyway. Called in when he found…this.”

  “How the hell he get her up there?”

  “Dunno. Don’t know how we’re going to get her down either. Thought you might have some ideas.”

  “I’m not a fucking engineer,” said Malone. “And I’ve seen some shit, but this takes it.”

  His eyes followed the course of the blood as it trickled down her body until it reached her toes—drip, drip, drip.

  “Couldn’t have been dead long though. Not if she’s still bleeding like that.”

  “Has to have been at least five or six hours,” said Williams.

  “Unless she wasn’t dead when he hung her up.”

  Malone took a step over to where the fence had been cut and peeled away. “So he brought her through here. Had to have had help to carry her and the tools he’d need to cut and roll back this fencing. Get her body in here, tie her to the crane. You guys find any footprints?”

  “None.”

  “Tracks of any kind?”

  “No.”

  “Tire marks?”

  “Nothing. And fact is, might not have even been whoever did this that cut the fence. Kids come up here all the time, but nobody much else does. Could have cut it months ago and we would never have known.”

  “So we got no physical evidence?”

  “None we’ve been able to find, and the rain doesn’t help.”

  “This is a nightmare.”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  Girl was in her late teens, early twenties. College student, most likely. Possibly a prostitute, but Malone didn’t think so. If she was, she was way too high class for this town. He’d made a habit of keeping up with the local street walkers, knowing their territory, their regulars. He figured since half of them would end up on the slab, he might as well get a jump on suspects. Little extra footwork on the front end would save time and effort on the back. Besides, she didn’t have the look. Too clean, no track marks. Too pretty, too. No, this was somebody’s daughter, and so far it looked like whoever had done this to her had left no clues.

  Her body twisted in the wind, and for the first time, the floodlights shone on her back. Malone gasped, and that wasn’t a reaction he was used to.

  “What the fuck is that?” whispered Williams, to the rain as much as to anybody else. Malone flipped out his notebook, holding it close to shield it from the downpour. He drew what he saw. It was carved into her back, a symbol he didn’t recognize. A crescent moon maybe, upside down, its horns locked around three circles, merged together, like a model of an atom he made in sixth grade science class. A single circle was carved below it, completing the effect.

  “What element has three protons?” Malone asked, still sketching in his pad. His question was met with silence. He turned and stared at the dumbstruck officers. “What, you didn’t go to fucking grade school?”

  “Helium, maybe?” Carver offered.

  “Lithium,” said Williams. “But that’s not it. Lithium has three electrons around its core.”

  “I don’t know if they were going for that kind of accuracy,” said Carver.

  “You asked, and that’s what I’m telling you. If it’s an atom, it’s Tritium.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Cause it’s not natural. Doesn’t appear on any of the tables. Takes a nuclear bomb going off to make it.”

  Malone made a note of that little bit of trivia. The symbol for Tritium, at the Trillium mine. How could they not be related?

  He stepped to the edge of the pit and pointed his flashlight down into the depths. The beam did not reach the bottom. “Williams.”

  “Yeah?”

  He threw the younger man his keys. “Open my trunk. There’s some climbing gear inside. Rope, harness, that kinda thing.”

  “What do you need that for?”

  “Somebody’s gotta go down there. Might as well be me. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something before the rain gets worse.”

  It took them twenty minutes to get it set up. Malone in the harness, rope anchored. All the time the girl waited, literally twisting in the wind.

  “Alright. Hell of a bad idea, but let’s do it. You guys are going to lower me down. Slow. If anything happens, pull me up. And make that fast.” He pulled out his gun, checked the clip. Jacked a bullet into the chamber. “Probably nothing down there. But if there is…”

  “You sure you don’t want to wait?”

  Of course he wanted to wait. But the rain had already taken away so much. If there was a chance to claw something back, he’d seize it. He stepped to the edge of the pit, put his back to it, tugged the rope tight, tested it with a couple jerks, and jumped.

  The descent took only a few minutes, but every inch down seemed to last an age. The drip, drip, drip of blood thundered in the narrow passage of the Vertical. Malone tried not to think about the fact that she was above him, hanging. Yet he found himself glancing occasionally upward at her body, silhouetted in shadow. The relief he felt when his feet touched solid ground was immediate, palpable. He didn’t dwell on it long. He crouched, unholstering his weapon, scanning the area with his flashlight. There was no one—and nothing—down there with him.

  He shone his light on the floor. It was covered in the debris and detritus of twenty years without use. Cigarette butts, smashed beer bottles, used condoms. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Nothing, save for the one item that now held his gaze.

  It was lying directly beneath her. He knew that, because every drip, drip, drip of blood added to the pool already on top of it. It appeared to be a large Ziploc bag, with something white inside of it.

  Malone reached into his pocket, pulled out two latex gloves, snapped them on. He crouched down, slid the bag towards him, picking it up carefully. Even covered in blood, he could see now what was inside. Paper—pages and pages of it. And not blank. Typewritten. Only the words on the top were legible—Inch by Inch and Row by Row.

  A flutterin
g sound. A flash of white in the corner of his eye. His flashlight caught it, as it hit the ground. A small rectangle of cardboard. The front bore but two words: Limbus, Inc. He flipped it over, and written on the back was a single sentence: “How lucky do you feel?”

  He heard the sound of rending metal. There was a scream from above. On instinct, Malone threw himself against the wall of the Vertical. An instant later, a heavy crash directly in front of him, the sickening sound of shattering bones. Malone didn’t have to look to know what it was, but he pointed his light down upon it anyway.

  The girl’s cold dead eyes shone back at him.

  Inch by Inch and Row by Row

  By

  Seanan McGuire

  The sound of someone hammering on the front door woke me from my first sound sleep in weeks. I rolled over, sticking my head under the pillow in an effort to hold on to unconsciousness for just a few more seconds. It was no use: the hammering continued. The last lingering fragments of my dreams dissolved, leaving me staring at the pink and yellow stains on my sheet. I used to take a marker when I was younger and draw blobby, abstract flowers around those stains, trying to turn them from random smears of color into something beautiful. I used to—

  The hammering got louder. Whoever was out there was going to break the door down if they didn’t stop soon. The thought made me sit bolt upright in the bed. Only two people knock like that: tax collectors and the police. Neither one was likely to be stopping by for a social call.

  “I’m coming! I’m coming!” I shouted, grabbing my bathrobe from the floor next to the bed. The fabric was scratchy against my skin, which was always more sensitive than normal when I first woke up, like my body had spent the night over-producing histamine in an effort to make up for a non-existent shortfall. My gardening gloves were in the pocket where I’d shoved them the night before. I tugged them on as I ran barefoot down the hallway to the stairs, praying I wouldn’t trip. The thought of someone attempting CPR on me was enough to make me move faster, which increased the chances of a fall. Through it all the hammering continued, getting steadily louder, until it felt like a heartbeat slamming through the walls of my home.