BLUEMANTLE, Karen Langston [best classic romance novels TXT] 📗

the quarry. His sister had contacted him the previous week, asking for money. This was unheard of. He knew Wella was fiercely independent; she hated asking him for the time, let alone a bail-out. They were far from close; Chase struggled to remember the last time he had seen her. Yet, out of the blue, she had contacted him and asked for two thousand ketrels. Not a vast amount, but enough for it to be meaningful. Maybe to cover the rent in her shithole of a room in Rader Tenements, he had thought.

They had arranged to meet that morning so he could hand her the money. He felt sure she wouldn’t have missed their appointment unless something had happened. Something unexpected.

Chase honed in on the swallow hole.

He had heard the reports on the radio. State journalists had been at the scene from early dawn, interviewing Emergency officers, local residents, the weeping separated. It had dominated mandatory broadcasts for over forty-eight hours.

Now, with a potential connection to the disaster, he couldn’t rid his mind of the pictures the radio had painted. He imagined the scene, the vast scale of the hole. The unfathomable depth. He tried to visualise three hundred metres, gauging it against a familiar frame of reference: the high-rise blocks in the Wallace Estates where Naylor lived. They were eighty storeys and towered 250 metres from the ground. Chase’s stomach turned.

He remained preoccupied by the horrors of the hole until he wandered into Drayloc Market, a sprawling maze of stalls and shacks, bordered by low-rise buildings. These were built in the old style: hand-carved limestone, with shuttered apertures in weathered oak. Faded posters peeled from the walls – blocks of washed-out colour amid the yellow ochre and raw sienna of the limestone buildings and sun-baked ground.

The market stalls were ramshackle, covered by hide awnings that created much-needed shade. Vendors called out their wares to passing trade, pushing cloth, ironware, pottery, bric-a-brac. Food shacks filled the air with toasted spice and sugar syrup, cooking street food such as kobbos, roll-tops and balkra over roasting braziers. The narrow passageways between the stalls were filled with citizens, moving with purpose without haste. Most wore tunics in shades of grey, or strap shirts and lose slacks – practicality, the only design principle.

Chase sought shade from the sun but could not escape the sultry air. His strap shirt clung to his broad chest; the tattoos along his bare arms glistened with sweat. Pushing back his dark hair, he tried to imagine a stroking breeze cooling his neck. He glanced up at the clock in the centre of the market. It was time.

Naylor was already waiting at the gate. “So, fill me in,” he said. He was approaching sixty, more than a decade older than Chase. Tall with a wiry frame, he hid beneath salt and pepper hair that was curly and unkempt.

“Not here. Let’s find some shade.” Chase led the way, weaving through the crowded market to a tea bar. Long wooden benches ran either side of narrow trestle tables. The two men sat down opposite each other. A boy came over with glasses of cold green tea. “Thanks for meeting me,” said Chase.

“That’s what friends are for. Now, tell me what you know.”

“Wella was supposed to meet me this morning. It was something important, but she didn’t show. I went over to Rader, but she wasn’t home.”

“Work?”

“I phoned in. They couldn’t connect me. She wasn’t at her station.”

“Maybe something came up?”

“It’s the furnaces, Naylor. You don’t just not go because something comes up.”

Naylor studied Chase’s face. “What is it?”

“I keep thinking about that hole.”

“But that’s over in Glos – opposite side of the city. Why would she be there in the middle of the night?”

“She could’ve been with Tinashe, or Weldon.”

“But they live in Darlem Fields. And they’d have no reason to go up to Glos, or anywhere else in A territory for that matter. I’m sure she wouldn’t have been anywhere near the hole.”

“Bit of a coincidence, though, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do. Coincidence is exactly what I think. And anyway, you must’ve heard the radio. The Authority says they’ve assessed their records and named all the dead.”

“They would say that.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No bodies, Naylor. No proof there weren’t more victims. Just the usual ‘job done’, ‘case closed’, ‘we know what we know’.”

Naylor glanced around them, then leant forward, dropping his voice. “Careful with that talk, Chase. We’re not in The Raven here. You know what goes on in the Exchange.” He sat back, eyes wide.

“Relax. I’m not criticising the A; I’m simply stating facts. They like things neat and tidy.” He shook his head. “All I’m saying is this isn’t like Wella. She never calls, let alone asks for help. She wouldn’t have done it lightly. That’s why I’m convinced, if something had come up, she would’ve put a call out to me.”

“So, we’ll look for her. Think who her friends are, where she hangs out.”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Well, there must be places near here, in Five Wents. Then I suggest we go back to her quarters, see if we can find anything that might give us a lead.” Naylor stood up and dropped a ten-ketrel coin in each of the glasses. “Let’s go find your sister.”

–

They walked the length of Second Went, clinging to the shade beneath the iron ribcage of the elevated tramway. Steam railmotors rattled overhead, their wheels clack-clacking over neglected joints. The supporting girders strained under the weight of crawling engines and their coupled trailers loaded with weary passengers. The Elevated wove through the city: a rusted chain binding the Hundreds of Wydeye and their constituent districts.

Beneath the straddled legs of the Elevated ran a concrete underpass. Pedestrians competed with Authority vehicles, bicycles and an assortment of carts, mostly goat-drawn. Chase jumped to one side, narrowly escaping a knock from an oncoming carter, his goats oblivious.

Flustered as much from the long walk in the sultry heat as from the near miss, Chase grabbed Naylor’s arm. “Let’s ask in here.”

He