“Enter your suspicion again,” said Brach. He walked toward me, coming close. Cassius’s hand tightened on my shoulder. “How far has the Iron Horse ward receded in just the time since we last spoke? A hundred yards? Two? And you don’t appear tohave even obtained any catalysts yet. Tell me what it is youaredoing to preserve our dear friend’s legacy.” That was fair. But something gnawed at me about him showing up here. Not his show of grief—that had felt at least somewhat legit. It was that if he was really behind Henry’s death, he’d have had a chance at Henry’s personal effects when he had him killed. So, maybe something had gone wrong with the hit, or someone had gotten sloppy. Because other than the song he’d played for Henry, he seemed almost galled to be here at all.
“I won’t argue with you about being a noob,” I said. “But I’ve been fighting, one way or another, my whole life. On top of that, I’ve lived through my share of territorial beefs. So, maybe if Henry trusted me, you can back off a little.”
“Territorial beefs,” Brach said. “Street fights with guns and knives, you mean.”
I glanced at Henry’s body. “Sure seems a lot of folks are suddenly familiar with my personal history.”
“Raptorial dossiers on persons of interest are available to schism leaders, same as they are to the chancery. OfcourseI’ve looked into your personal history. There’s too much at stake not to have done so.”
Lakshmi obviously had a dossier on me that Brach had seen. “I got nothing to hide.”
“Or to show, it would seem,” Brach said.
Cassius squeezed my shoulder again and spoke low but firm. “Perhaps if the conversation is now only to trade insults, we can agree this is not the time or place to have it.”
Brach’s eyes narrowed, then relaxed. “As I said, we are none of us ourselves in the face of grief.”
It was a good line, but I was starting to think this was who Brach really was all the time.
The Shiguan leader took a long look back at Henry. “ ‘If one could endure this immense sum of grief while being a personwhose horizon encompasses thousands of years, this would surely result in a happiness that humanity has not yet known: the happiness of a god full of power and love.’ ”
Was that what Brach thought he was? A god? “I’ve heard that somewhere before.”
“It’s Nietzsche,” Cassius interjected, “but a paraphrase, I believe.” Brach turned back. “About Henry’s effects.”
Like a dog with a bone, this guy. “Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can keep an eye out.”
“Then you admit you’re Henry’s legal ‘next of kin,’ ” said Brach.
“No idea.” It was a partial lie. Cage had told us he had Henry’s effects for me. “It’s like I said, we just got here. Came to identify the body.”
“Interesting,” said Brach, “since it’s customary for the coroner to collect the deceased’s personal belongings for the next of kin. And you’re here. Which suggests you’re either lying or stupid.”
“Stupid? For keeping what Henry may have wanted me to have?”
Brach smirked. “No, stupid for not seeing the danger you’re putting your world and mine in with your suspicion and lack of thanaturgic maturity.” His tone softened. “I’m asking you, Jack, to consider this carefully. There is more at stake than you could possibly know. You need to trust me, the way Henry did when he came to me for help.”
He could be right. And despite having been through most of Henry’s books, as well as his journal, there was still so much I didn’t know. At the end of it, though, I went with my gut. “I don’t know anything about Henry’s personal things. I’m kind of still dealing with the fact that he’s dead.”
Brach swallowed, taking a beat. Then smiled. “Of course.”
He’d let it go. For now. But the way he’d called me a liar and stupid nagged at me.
A soft knock came on the door. Brach glanced over my shoulder, then back at me. “I’m worried for you, Mr. Solomon. But I’m even more worried for the Iron Horse. We will speak again soon.” He brushed past us and pulled open the door. In the hallway beyond I caught sight of two figures but didn’t have time to read their shadows before the door closed, leaving Cassius and me alone again with the bodies of Henry and his killer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A lantern’s light may be applied to a variety of tasks by changing the stroke of one’s bow across the lantern’s frame: to assault, to blind, to brace, to canker, to cleanse, to reveal . . .
—Edward Elgar,The Art of Bowing
Less than a minuteafter Brach was gone, Dr. Cage bustled back into the autopsy room. “Sorry for the delay, gentlemen, but if I may beg a few minutes more of your time, please.” He finger-combed his mustache again. “You see, in my line of work, I see a lot of death.”
I stood there, listening, but wondering whether Brach had engineered those few minutes alone for us in the coroner’s examination bay.
“What I mean,” Cage continued, “and what I think Detective Bryant was getting at, is that police questioning and the viewing of the deceased inside our examination rooms aren’t exactly protocol. But insomecases, we look past the rules . . . because some of us know about your kind.”
I shot a look at Cassius, then back at Dr. Cage. “What do you mean ‘Some of you know about our kind’?”
