The Dark Issue 3 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, horror, magazine
Publisher: TDM Press
Published: 2014-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

Steve Berman sold his first short story at seventeen and has been writing ever since. He also has edited several horror and dark fantasy anthologies for Prime Books and Lethe Press. His novel, Vintage: A Ghost Story, was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award.

Zeraquesh in Absentia

Benjanun Sriduangkaew

In the city of Zeraquesh, each shadow is the shape of candlelight held still. A citizen leaving the comfort of roof and walls can expect to attract several hauntings at every corner turned. Such ghosts may be shed only under the light of anglerfish refracted through a prism. Most households keep at least one about.

The hunter has armed herself with a calligraphic blade refined in the stomachs of freedom fighters and a gun whose bullets invert probability. It is the second upon which she most depends, though it fires only under very particular conditions, in a unique location: but that is all right, for her purpose is singular. Neither is it a weapon of blunt force, for manipulating potential is a subtle art. Everything has to align just right. The chamber contains two bullets, no more.

For the moment she uses the blade, which spills couplets and proverbs so ancient they will cut through any armor and slice apart iron as easily as paper. That is how she makes an entrance for herself through the ziggurat walls, in negation of propriety, law, and good sense.

But she is used to having her way. The percussion of her footfalls lends surety to her path and the firebrand of her blade keeps the hauntings at bay. She climbs spirals, steps across roofs on which stone phoenixes and kirin nest, pushes through windowpanes in which faces not her own are reflected.

She comes to a door, on whose panel nothing is written other than the ten cardinal points illustrated in bluebottle paint. She does not unsheathe her sword of poetry; there are courtesies to observe, a transaction to make. One knock and she has admittance.

The office is festooned in calcified regrets, furnished by worn furniture and a lone tank, home to a stunted anglerfish whose light can barely disperse a tenth of a ghost. Fronds of drowned ambition sway in the black waters, framing the gleam of a jaundiced esca.

At the desk, a woman sits. She has a smoker’s teeth, stained the same shade as the anglerfish’s lure. Her dress is typical of her trade: vest and stiff collars, a long jacket with split sleeves. They are of the same color as Zeraquesh’s pavements, save for the metal accents which tell of frost and a winter that never comes.

“Detective,” the hunter says.

“I don’t see very many clients.” The detective leaves it ambiguous whether she means not many seek her, or whether she—being exclusive—refuses to see but a select few. “Lieutenant Hesraine.”

“I didn’t tell you my name.”

“Why take up a profession like mine if I couldn’t read something as simple as people’s names? In any case I’m surprised you are here—you enforce law, or at least power, in a city other than this one.

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