The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [73]
As soon as Alan had left the main street, the sharpsies leapt at him. They were quick, much quicker than he was, and soon each one held one of Alan’s arms in an iron grip. Alan screamed, and all fear he’d been damming up inside exploded out, shivering through his muscles, welling out his eyes, covering his face in tears.
The one on his left sputtered and hacked something in sharpish.
“I don’t understand!” Alan practically screamed. “I’m not…I’m not…please, don’t hurt me! I’m just trying to…I have to see the coroners!”
The two sharpsies snapped and guttered at each other this time, then the one on Alan’s right leaned in close, slowly working it’s long jaws with those nasty, huge, hooked teeth. Its breath smelled like raw meat. It rasped something in the back of its throat.
“Please,” Alan whimpered. “It’s important. I need to see the coroners.”
The sharpsie rasped something again, and this time it sounded vaguely familiar. “Ghehkek.”
“I don’t…” Alan tried to understand. Was the sharpsie trying to tell him something? Something in Trowth? They’d reacted when he mentioned the coroners. “Do you . . . you mean Beckett?”
The sharpsie nodded slowly.
Alan was now left in the unfortunate position of trying to guess whether or not the sharpsie was favorably disposed towards the old coroner. If it was, there was a good chance it might let Alan go. If it wasn’t, then there was an equally good chance it would bite the young man’s face off. Alan swallowed noisily. “Yes. I need to see Beckett. It’s important…”
The sharpsie snapped something vicious-sounding at his companion, then turned back to Alan, and curtly nodded again. The two long-jawed men released Alan, then made a gesture indicating that he should be off. Warily, and still sniffling, Alan backed away from the two sharpsies towards Raithower House.
They followed, but at a distance. When Alan passed another small group of sharpsies past Old Wall Square, the two following him shouted something guttural at the others, and Alan found himself unmolested. The sharpsies disappeared about a block away from Raithower House.
Strangely, the terrifying encounter with the sharpsies seemed to have purged Alan of his fear. He knew he ought to be jittery and stammering as he approached the guard at the coroners’ headquarters, but he found his stride confident, his voice strong.
“My name is Alan Charterhouse,” the young man told the waiting guard. “I need to speak with Detective-Inspector Elijah Beckett regarding the murder of Herman Zindel.”
The guard said nothing, but retreated into a small guardhouse. Past the bars of the main gate and through the tiny window of the guardhouse, Alan could see another man, this one wearing the silver plate over his eyes that signified a knocker. The knocker cocked his head to the side as if waiting for an answer, then nodded, satisfied. The guard returned from the house.
“You can go in,” he told Alan. “Through the front door, right at the main stairs, into the parlor at the end of the hall.” For a moment, all of Alan’s concerns vanished from his mind as he thought about what it meant that the Knockers could communicate over distances like that. Was there a way to replicate their telerhythmia? To transmit code through space without a knocker at all? Anyone could send messages, then. You could…
The iron gate swung open with an ear-splitting shriek, startling Alan from his musings, and he walked across the dark courtyard to where to phlogiston lamps burned blue and unearthly by the doors. They, too, swung open, and out spilled golden candle-light from the interior. Alan followed the guard’s directions, and soon found himself in the red-and-gold appointed parlor.
Beckett was nowhere to be seen. Skinner was seated primly on one of the couches, while another man, tall, thin, and rakish sprawled on his back—nearly