City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [123]
‘Are you feeling well, doctor?’
Voland smiled at the little devils. ‘Grand, thanks. I’m still working on this one, but you could bring the next alongside if you’d like.’
‘Anything for you, doctor!’ The mists turned more cohesive, ghosting upwards into the murky light. A body seemed to slide upwards and unhook itself of its own accord, and the Phonoi drifted down to lay it carefully across the other side of the workbench. They suffused out of focus again, and left him to his business.
*
Malum was bleary-eyed but determined to focus on the day ahead. Loitering in a snowy side street next to the old slaughterhouse, the collar on his surtout turned up, he was delivering the monthly payment due to that lonely old freak, Doctor Voland. He wanted to give the personal touch, since there was always another gang looking to get in on the distribution – only last month he’d had to kneecap a man and a woman.
He was shocked to see members of a rival gang, the Lord Cromis, waiting outside the back of the abattoir. This isn’t their patch, the cunts. They had come all the way from Jackknife Gata – a district that was a corpse, the other end of town. So why the fuck were they here? Voland was a good contract to have, and the Bloods consistently made a large profit with very little effort. Some said garuda, some even said hybrid-rumel, but where Voland was really getting the meat from, Malum didn’t know, and he didn’t care. All he knew was that the eccentric man delivered on time, at a reasonable price. In this city, people with such qualities were miraculous.
JC and Duka were already waiting for him. Both men were well insulated in jumpers and gloves, and attached to their hips were their sheathed messer blades.
‘Thought you was bringing the money,’ JC slurred from under his mask, shifting from foot to foot to generate a little warmth.
Malum patted his surtout, under which was concealed a small bag of Sota coins. ‘See the fuckers from the Cromis have shown their faces.’
‘They’ve been there a while.’ Duka wiped his exposed face as if to make himself more alert. He was clearly expecting a fight.
There were three of them, from what he could see, skulking under the red-brick entrance to an abandoned store. No: there were three men huddled in the shadow, and another, a prodigious garuda, dressed in smart clothing, was leaning against the outside wall, wings tucked neatly behind it. Flecks of snow skimmed across the smouldering tip of its roll-up.
Malum made sure his mask was secured properly. ‘We should just ignore them,’ he announced, but as soon as he spoke the four of them sauntered towards him. Led by the bird-figure, there was a pugnacious purpose to their stride.
The garuda hand-signed something to a skinhead on one side of it, and the man spoke on its behalf. ‘We want a slice of this. We know what you’re up to, where you’re getting the meat from. The madam says we want in.’
‘What?’ Malum hadn’t expected the garuda to be female. ‘You want to join us?’
The garuda squawked something unintelligible and straightened her coat. Malum noticed that it was made from paduasoy, and perfectly tailored to accommodate her wings. On closer inspection, those appendages appeared to be disabled in some way, looking ragged and ineffectual. The garuda shook hand signals to her henchmen.
The skinhead said: ‘We request to relieve you of this contract.’
Malum was filling with rage. ‘You dare to challenge me?’ he shouted. ‘Me! You have any idea who the fuck I am?’
‘Just the leader of a few men,’ the skinhead grunted, ‘is all you are.’
Malum shook his knife loose from his sleeve, and JC and Duka followed suit, unsheathing their blades and standing to either side, making three against four. In these precious seconds he weighed things up in glances, in inferred movements.
JC and Duka moved forward into a crouch, blades ready in one hand. The garuda loitered behind the opposing group, with barely an expression on its face. Malum slipped a smaller knife from his boot and whipped it over JC’s shoulder at the skinhead, while he wasn’t looking. It