The Mortality Principle

6

The rest of the day passed slowly.

The hotel lobby filled and emptied, filled and emptied, all walks of life seeming to drift through the atrium and yet it maintained its sense of calm. She could imagine the monks all those years ago shuffling through the same chambers, heads bowed in quiet contemplation. There was a conference in town, medical supplies by the sounds of the jargon being bandied about by the participants as they tried to one-up one another with jokes and punch lines that made no sense to Annja.

By early evening she was finally starting to feel hungry. She thought about calling room service, but the menu was fairly unappetizing and she had an entire city at her disposal. She’d heard about a place down by the river where the intellectuals and artists used to gather that had become a hive of secret activity during the revolution and now was renown for cheap good-quality eats in an authentic environment. It was proper precapitalism Prague, and it was only a five-minute walk away along one of the wider boulevards. Nothing was going to happen at five-thirty, she told herself, and ventured out in search of food.

Shop windows with words she couldn’t read emblazoned across them shone invitingly at one end of the street and were boarded up at the other. She saw young women walking in groups, laughing, and young men behind them, studious with book bags slung over their shoulders and earnest expressions behind their black plastic-framed glasses. She heard snatches of conversation in English about Kafka and a church around the corner that they were sure was featured in one of his stories. Those strands of intellectualism were cut across by more mundane chatter, including the fact that some website had gone down. What she didn’t hear was anyone talking about the murders.

The restaurant itself was the last building on the street, with huge plate-glass windows looking out over the Vltava. Inside, soft lighting from huge chandeliers gave the impression of opulence that was contradicted almost immediately by the tables beneath them, which looked like they would have been at home in a greasy spoon in the Bowery.

She sat at a table by the window, with a great view of the castle on the hill, and watched as one by one the stars came out. She asked the waiter what he’d recommend, something local, authentic Czech cuisine. He came back with a sampler filled with all sorts of peculiarities. She had no idea what she was putting into her mouth. Some of it was delicious, some of it wasn’t.

The meal killed another hour, the leisurely coffee after it another thirty minutes. Annja was good when it came to keeping her own company. She didn’t need to hide herself in a book, either. She was just content to simply be. To sit, gazing out of the window at the world as it passed by. To think.

And tonight she was thinking about Roux and Garin.

There was obviously something going on between the pair of them again. They were like a couple of teenage girls sometimes. She wanted to bang their heads together. But Roux was right: Garin’s simply turning up this morning was uncharacteristic even if he tried to pass it off as boredom. Very little Garin Braden did was without some underlying cause, and that cause only ever benefited Garin Braden. That was just the way of the world. It was hard to be angry with him for it. It was who he was. You might as well be angry with the wasp for stinging you or the milk for expiring. To quote the motivational poster: shit happens.

By the time Annja headed back to the hotel, the sun was a thing of the past, and the sky was verging on black. Cities were a different animal at night. Streets that had felt safe even just an hour earlier had a hostile undercurrent once the moon ruled the sky.

Annja made it back to her room for nine. Garin was nowhere in sight. It was still early to go out looking for the journalist, but she called Lars, anyway. “Fifteen minutes?” she said.

Getting back out there seemed to be more useful than sitting there tapping her foot. She didn’t know how life on the street worked. Turek might already be trying to lay claim to a sheltered spot for the night.

“Thought you’d bailed on me,” Lars replied. “I’ve been watching the news for the past three hours, but there’s been no mention of the killings.”

Annja wasn’t surprised. She said as much to Lars.

They arranged to meet down in the atrium.

Annja didn’t take much with her. All she needed was the street map where she’d marked a few possible locations and landmarks of interest. It hadn’t been difficult to identify the kinds of places where the homeless gathered, where soup kitchens were set up to feed them and where the hostel beds could be found to keep a few of them warm at night. But she wasn’t interested in those places. There was safety in numbers. She knew she should focus on isolated places where someone would be alone and therefore more vulnerable.

She headed to the lobby.

Her cameraman had managed to beat her to the punch and was leaning against the wall, his camera still packed in its flight case at his feet. He was chatting with the doorman just inside the glass doors. They slid open as she approached him.

“Ready?” Annja asked as she felt the cool air on her face. The temperature had dropped a good five degrees since she’d come back from the restaurant. It was only going to get colder out there as the night wore on.

The streets were filled with late-night tourists following the curves of old cobbled streets around to the famous bridge to get their photographs taken and gaze up at the castle under the bright spotlights. The distant sound of traffic was barely audible over the music piping out of the row of tourist-trap restaurants with their tables spilling out into the streets. That was where the lucky ones would be congregating—those who could afford to go out for a good time knowing that they would have a warm bed to go home to when they’d finished having fun for the night. Plenty of them would be there until the early hours, but they would have taxis to take them to their homes or hotels. They weren’t the ones at risk.

“The guy on the door told me that there are a few places around here where people try to make a bed for the night,” Lars said.

She fell into step beside the big Swede. He was every bit the archetype of his people—big, blond and burly. “We were just talking about the murder that happened last night. He said that it wasn’t far from here. Want to go check it out?”

“I saw the body.”

“You did what? And you didn’t think to mention it? Way to bury the lead.”

“Consider it exhumed.” She quickened her pace. There was no point in hanging around so close to the main roads and the hotels this early in the evening. They needed to find the darker corners, away from the eyes of the kind of people who would be uncomfortable if they saw the genuine poverty of the city they’d come to visit.

“I’ve already marked on the map a few places we might want to check out,” she said as Lars hustled to keep up with her. They moved with a purpose. No one else did. That meant she had to twist and weave between milling people, looking for breaks in the press of bodies to step into. Part of the reason for the haste was to avoid questions. It was harder for Lars to pepper her with them if he was chasing to keep up with her. Part, though, was that she was eager to find the journalist. He was the only one who seemed to know anything about what was happening on the streets. That, of course, had prickled her suspicions, too. It wouldn’t have been the only time a killer had played the press for his own agenda. But she didn’t think Turek was the killer. Not that she had anything to base that assumption on, not even his picture.

“Let’s start with some background shots of the conditions these people are forced to live in.”

“This really doesn’t feel like Chasing History’s Monsters,” Lars said.

He was right, of course. There was a fine line between history repeating itself and exploitation, and she wasn’t sure which side of that line she was walking right now.

“We don’t need much, just a few shots to give the story some genuine impact.”

She hesitated for a second when she reached the alleyway where she’d seen the body that morning. There were strands of police tape tied to downspouts on either side of the mouth, but the tape had been snapped and hung loose against the wall. The black stain on the ground wasn’t going to stop anyone from using the alleyway as a shortcut to wherever he or she needed to be.

“This is where it happened?” Lars asked, looking at the dark patch at his feet.

Annja found herself nodding. She focused on the gloom between the buildings. The streetlights penetrated only a short way before the alleyway was swallowed in darkness. She could understand why the homeless man had picked it for his shelter.

She heard the sound of something shuffling in the darkness and her heart skipped a beat.

“Hello?” she called to whoever was hiding inside the alleyway. It wasn’t like she thought they’d stumbled on the killer, no matter what pop psychologists said about returning to the scene of the crime. “Hello?” she called again, feeling a tingle up her spine.

Instinctively Annja caught herself flexing her fingers, ready to reach into the otherwhere to call on her sword. She glanced around, looking at Lars, who was peering over her shoulder, camera trained on the darkness. Well, she thought, if we get killed by some psychopath, at least he’ll get the shot. It wasn’t the most comforting of thoughts.

Annja took a step closer to the darkness, her breath catching in her throat as she strained to hear whatever it was that was hiding back there.

The shuffling stopped.

Annja didn’t move.

Didn’t breathe.

But she could hear breathing.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Each one grew louder with every tentative step that she took into the darkness.

The space was suddenly flooded with light as the lamp in the camera behind her burst into bright life. The only darkness that remained was cut out inside her shadow.

The blinding light was greeted by a scuttle of panicked movement and then, a fraction of a second later, whoever it was hiding in the darkness charged straight at her in a whirl of panic.

The source of the movement was much closer than she’d expected.

A body swathed in streaming rags of shadow barreled into her, slamming Annja back against the wall.

The air was driven from her lungs by the impact. Even as she gasped for breath, she grabbed out with one hand, her fingers snatching at the material of her attacker’s sleeve. Annja hung on until the owner of the coat lost his footing, and she used her weight and his momentum to help him stumble and fall.

The man stared up at her. Blinded by the light of the camera he threw his hands in front of his face. Annja looked down at him. He was babbling, pleading. She couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but the meaning was obvious: please don’t hurt me. She released her grip. This wasn’t the killer. This was one of his potential victims.

Annja held her hands up in apology, trying to help him to his feet as she said, “Sorry. Sorry. My mistake.”

The man didn’t take her proffered hand. He scrambled away, the soles of his feet pushing him along on the ground as he grabbed for his precious few possessions, which had spilled out of his pockets as he charged her in fear. She felt nothing but pity for the man, unable to imagine what it would be like to walk a mile in his shoes.

The world was cruel, that much was undeniable. She’d seen more than enough of that cruelty to last a lifetime, but she was lucky. She also got to see the amazing stuff, too, the stuff that made life worth living.

Did he? she wondered, and then hated herself for so immediately patronizing the man without knowing a thing about his life or what had driven him to this desperate end.

“Please,” Annja said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a neatly followed twenty-euro note. The look of fear and panic in his eyes was replaced with one of surprise, then avarice, as he reached out and took the money from her. He spirited it away in a heartbeat like the greatest magician to walk the streets of Prague, then scrambled to his feet without a word of thanks and backed away from her, nodding over and over as he pushed his way past Lars, who had stopped taping the events.

The man hurried along the street, clutching a plastic bag that she assumed was stuffed with his tattered sleeping bag.

“I’m thinking we need a better plan,” Lars said, deadpan.

Annja didn’t argue.

As plans went, it had been pretty thin, anyway.

“Maybe we should just head back to the hotel and wait to see if your man gives you a call?”

“Are you chickening out on me, Lars?” she asked.

“Just checking.”

“We need to get this right. I haven’t told you what’s going on back at the network, but basically, if I screw this up, no more Chasing History’s Monsters. I really don’t want to screw this up.”

“We don’t even have a story to screw up. Not really. We’re just wandering the streets at night.”

“Now you’re making me sound a little bit too much like a hooker for my liking,” Annja said, shaking her head. He was right, though. That’s pretty much what they were doing. “What else can we do?”

The question was rhetorical.

Lars pointed his camera back into the gloom of the alleyway and shot some footage of the place where the body had been found. The spotlight from the camera gave the dark stain a macabre cast. Annja pointed out the strands of police tape, making sure that he got them in the shot, as well. She didn’t want him to linger on the stain. She didn’t want the viewers making the mental connection between it and the reality that they were looking at the last vestiges of the poor man’s spilled blood. Showing the police tape would be enough. It would pull the heartstrings of their audience and show that this was real. She didn’t even want the stain in the footage that went back to the network. She knew all too well what those ratings whores would use it for.

So often her contributions to the show had been about monsters from the past, just as the name of the program demanded, that had no relevance to today. This was the chance to do something different. She realized the shape of the show now; it was going to be a monster hunt, yes, but a live one. The trick would be linking the horrors of today with the horrors of the past, but that was what she was good at.

“Got enough?” she asked when he had covered just about every inch of the alley.

He nodded. “With plenty of space for you to add voice-over stuff. It’s pretty dark, though.” She didn’t know whether he meant in terms of exposure or content.

The sentiment, if the not the words, were becoming something of a mantra for this segment.

Annja liked Lars because he was never afraid of a challenge, and his eye when it came to framing the establishing shots was second to none. He had a way of making everything come alive when it fell under his lens. He was a pro. Versatile. And like a Boy Scout he was always prepared. He could have his camera in position, shooting, in seconds, more often than not before she’d even realized the shot was worth capturing herself. It was almost like telepathy sometimes.

It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eye, either. “Let’s get moving,” Annja said. It felt like there were eyes everywhere, watching from the shadows, following them every step they took. That was another difference between the day and the night city: at night ordinary things turned creepy. Just thinking about it was enough to have a shiver chase up her spine as if someone had walked over her grave. She wasn’t superstitious. She didn’t believe in omens. But she trusted her instincts, and right now her instincts were telling her it was time to move.

Lars gave up his position two steps behind her to walk by Annja’s side.

The rest of the streets near the hotel were quiet, which, of course, was exactly what she was looking for. Too many people meant there was no chance the killer would strike.

They walked for an hour, hearing the distant chimes of the astronomical clock tolling on the quarter hour.

It was easy to get paranoid about all the things they couldn’t see.

Across the way she noticed crates and barrels being unloaded from a truck and carried in through the back door of one of the clubs. It struck her as odd that they’d take a delivery so late at night.

A naked woman walked down the street, followed by a man with a handheld video camera recording her. It was obviously some kind of exploitation flick destined to wind up on the internet. Annja was sickened. She was in half a mind to walk over there and have it out with the photographer. Lars sensed it, too, and very artfully steered her away from making a scene. “We’ve got a reason for being here,” he told her. “And it’s not to fix all the ills of the city. It’s to catch a monster. Let’s not tip our hand. We’ve got no idea who’s watching us.”

And as he said it, she knew he was right. Not that she shouldn’t intervene—that felt absolutely right. No, he was right when he said someone was watching them. She’d known it since they left the alleyway.

“I’m going to remember his face,” Annja said, fixing the man’s features in her mind. “And if I see him again, he’s going to regret it. That’s a promise.”

“I have absolutely no doubt you will. You’re a frightening woman, Annja Creed. I wouldn’t want to be on your bad side,” Lars said.

They walked down one of the narrower streets, emerging near some sort of outdoor theater with marionettes being artfully manipulated by hidden puppet masters. There was quite a crowd gathered around. The city certainly offered a rich and varied nightlife, considering it was now past ten at night, and showed no signs of slowing down.

There were plenty of shadows for them to explore, though they didn’t venture deeply into any of them. She was fairly sure that Turek wouldn’t be settling down in one place this early, especially if he had managed to gain the trust of the vulnerable people on the streets. He would keep moving, talking to the disenfranchised around the inner city. Most would be young, she reasoned, drawn to the capital by the promise of a better life, of excitement. Some would be like the girl she’d just seen paraded naked through the street, too. Exploited. Others might have had a good life and lost it, or suffered a breakdown or simply not been able to cope and have turned their back on society, not wanting to be a part of it. There were as many possible stories out there in the night as there were people to tell them. Only one of them would help her get closer to the monster she hunted.

Did Turek have any idea where the killer might strike next? Was he working on a divinable pattern? Chaos versus order. Chance versus predestination. But there were ways to limit the randomness of that chance. There were ways to help exert order on a chaotic city. Annja checked her street map a few times to be sure that she was still heading in the general direction of one of the major landmarks she’d marked, a church that kept its doors open to offer hot soup, sandwiches and salvation all night.