Lieutenant Arkham: Elves and Bullets by Alessio Lanterna Page A

outside Cicisbeo, on the eighth circle of the abyss. The degenerate souls are anxious to flap their moth’s wings up to the blazing stake of oblivion. There’s a stench of urine, of faeces, and more faintly, of degrading, desperate sex, the whole thing is held together with an indiscernible bouquet of trash. The lower levels, are simultaneously, the most depressing and the most intense. Here, nobody’s got much to lose, so they all throw themselves head first into any old demented scheme that comes their way. Like a decomposing carcass, the city’s slums are swarming with carrion-eating invertebrates, who build their existence on the death of the animal they dig into by frenetically opening and closing their chitinous mandibles.
    A great fat pile of steaming shit.
    I can’t seem to find a place to park, despite my renowned casual attitude to council regulations, which is nothing new ‘round here. I’ll just have to wait, while Cohl puts his back into looking for a spot which breaks as few laws as possible. This is as stupid as it is futile. A couple nearby observe me for a few minutes before plucking up the courage to come over.
    “Oh mate, have you, like, got anything?” he asks with eyelids at half mast, scratching the back of his neck. The girl, black hair with blue stripes and three separate rings in her nose, looks as though she was pretty once. Of course, her urban scum look, combined with a nasty cut on her lower lip—recent, if the surrounding bruise is anything to go by—does nothing to help the overall effect.
    “I’ve got a gun,” I reply, deadpan. “Actually, two.”
    He doesn’t get it.
    “No, yeah.” He shrugs his shoulders as if he’s just said something blatantly obvious. “No, like, I mean
shit
.”
    “Might have. How much ‘shit’ is your slut worth?”
    He looks at her in a new light, estimating a figure. Stripy, on the other hand, looks somewhat alarmed.
    “Guy, I don’t…” interjects Miss City Dump, without much conviction. Could it be that she’s only just discovering how far he will stoop for a fix?
    “Ten grammes.”
    I burst out laughing right into his face.
    “It’s not like she’s the Queen of Blowjobs. Two, and I’m being generous.”
    “Five.”
    I shake my head.
    “Two.”
    “Four, come on, mate!” He opens his arms wide as if to say ‘you’re killing me’! What a character. As if he’s selling
his
arse.
    “Three.” He lowers his price even further, insistent.
    I pretend to think about it, scratching my chin.
    “So, let’s see, pimping for the procurement of drugs. Hmmm. And assault and battery, I reckon,” I say, indicating her black and blue mouth, “between six months and two years. That’s a rough guess”.
    “What the fuck are you on about?”
    “Come on, Guy, let’s go…”
    I grimace at Guy with an expression that must look enigmatic to him.
    “You’re not a
cop
?!” he asks, amazed, as though the simple idea of a cop waiting in a carpark smoking a cigarette, is totally incredible. It’s fantastic how everyone in the City is surprised when the inhabitants of a different “compartment” appear before their eyes. A fed at the scene of a murder is incredible, a fed at the restaurant is incredible, a cop on the Eighth is incredible. Bastard Father, I wonder if anyone is expecting a flatfoot at the precinct.
    “Yeah.” I smirk and show him my badge.
    Moment of panic.
    Escape.
    That was good fun.
    Foemor, I’m dog-tired. You’re not a kid anymore, Arkham, how many times do I have to tell you? You can’t sleep for two hours over two days. Fuck. A pick-me-up is needed here, I think, while fingering the half-empty packet in my pocket. And here, right in the middle of this romantic idyll with Onirò, Cohl pitches up with a distraught expression that I should be wearing, if the world were as it ought to be. As usual, everything is the wrong way ‘round.
    “So, shall we go?”
    “Wait.”
    “What?” Nohl is anxious to put an end to