Fantasy-Faction Anthology by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Miah Sonnel, Edmund Wells, Mark Charan Newton, fantasy, Kameron Hurley, Jennie Ivins, Marc Aplin, Michael J. Sullivan, anthology, Jessalyn Heaton, Daniel Beazley, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Myke Cole, Richard Morgan, John Yeo Jr., Jon Sprunk, Richard Ford, James Barclay, Mark Lawrence, Rene Sears, Fantasy-Faction, Anne Lyle
Publisher: Fantasy-Faction
Published: 2015-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

Cazar el Muerto

by Myke Cole

Cesar buried his daughter four years after he buried his wife. Then, because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, he reported for duty.

Some fragment of him not totally numbed by the loss knew that reporting to Captain Amate would only get him sent home to observe the grief period, so he geared up at the locker, ignoring the whispers of his colleagues. He nearly broke down at a small stack of rubber bands on the top shelf. His mind flooded with images; little Inez with a rubber band twisting between her thumb and forefinger. Starting to cry when he’d tried to take it away. Her preschool teacher called it a comfort object and told him she’d outgrow the habit eventually. But she hadn’t. She’d kept a little twist of rubber twirling between two fingers every moment since she’d been able to pick one up. The irritation turned maudlin when she’d died, and he wrapped one around her little chubby fist before setting her swaddled corpse in the casket.

He swallowed hard, shouldered his weapon and met his partner on station cleaning up a floater.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Eber’s pocked cheeks rose, his jaw dropping when he saw who it was. His eyes, vapid on the best of days, looked positively dumbstruck.

Cesar acted like nothing was out of the ordinary, nudging the corpse with a steel-toed boot. It had been there a while. The bloated skin looked scaly. Rats had taken an ear. Scores of feet over their heads, the Paseo de la Reforma rumbled its way through Mexico City’s most popular shopping district. The shops would be decked out in the colored ribbons and laughing skeletons that marked the festival of the Día de Muertos, when the dead came to visit their living descendants.

The sewers beneath were Cesar’s territory.

“You’re supposed to be home. . . .” Eber began.

“Shut up; let’s go to work,” Cesar said.

“Cesar, the captain isn’t going to—”

“What do you want me to do? It’s festival day! I can’t . . . I can’t be at home.” Cesar’s voice was more entreating than he’d intended. He’d built a shrine to the souls of his Aura and Inez, but couldn’t stand to look at it.

Eber grunted, unable to meet his eyes. Cesar broke the tension by kneeling in the muck to examine the corpse. He’d just begun to turn the body over when Eber’s radio crackled into life.

“Eber, we’ve got a clone on the run. Slipped her bracelet. Need you on it immediately.” If Amate had seen Cesar’s name on the run sheet, he made no mention of it.

“Capitán, we’ve got a floater here,” Eber said.

The captain was unimpressed. “Just give me the coordinates, and I’ll send in a mop-up team. This is more important. She entered the sewers at Santo Niño church.”

Cesar and Eber exchanged glances. “There’s a cliente, capitán?” Eber asked. In the graft-ridden world of Mexican law enforcement, a rich cliente was the quickest way to reroute resources.

Even

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