Rojan Dizon 02 - Before the Fall by Francis Knight

enough time in the Specials to know it when I see it.”
    “Is this really all you could find?”
    Apart from the pictures, all he had were the reports from the mortician detailing approximate age and so on, date, time and place of death and not a damned thing else.
    Dench spread the pictures out across the table again, and tapped at one now bloodless throat. “This isn’t random. I’m sure of it, sure as shit stinks. Somebody targeted these boys. Don’t know why, but someone really hated the poor bastards, or hated what they represent perhaps. Downsiders, hmm?” He paused, as though an idea had just struck him. “Find the link, and you’ll find your killer. Perhaps.”
    Without another word, he left to go back to Top of the World, back to keeping his sharp eye on Perak and juggling pissed-off cardinals and ambassadors. I didn’t envy him.
    I looked back down at the pictures. I didn’t envy myself much either. I spent a fruitless couple of hours checking out where the boys had died, but apart from the fact they were all murdered close together, which could mean anything, all I got was rain down my neck.
     
    In the end, I went where I’d lately taken to going when I needed to think and a sharp mind to ask all the right questions and tell me not to be such an arse. My one refuge from the world. Right then, I needed that something fierce because my head was spinning so fast I thought it might fall off.
    Erlat kept a house in the Buzz, a discreet place for the wealthy gentleman, those from Over Trade who had money to spare but wanted to taste the underbelly, as it were, when they wanted some kicks but weren’t brave enough for Under proper. The Buzz provided those kicks in small, hygienic doses. It was a byword for clean whores and drugs that wouldn’t make you go blind, probably. A place more like a ghost town lately.
    Erlat’s place didn’t look like much from the outside—a house like a thousand others just here. Walls dark with grime and synth, mean windows that shed a patchy light on to the walkways which were at least fairly solid. The splashes of paint were new, grouped around the door. Someone had tried, unsuccessfully, to scrub them off.
    She hadn’t been here long, only a couple of months since the ’Pit had opened up, but she ran a good house and word had spread. The Buzz patrons always loved to see a few new faces—as well as parts further down.
    Kersan opened the door for me and let me in with a deferential smile. The waiting room was as plush as any I’ve seen, with rich velvets draping the walls, artful drawings, mostly of nudes with modestly placed hands and a few less modest that hinted at the business Erlat ran. Scented candles worked their magic on me and my shoulders stopped their habitual hunch against the world. Erlat’s house was calm, was order, was an oasis in the shit.
    “Madame is with a client,” Kersan murmured. He was one of the few who knew who this face was hiding, but he was as discreet as they come. He had to be, in his job. He probably knew the grubby secrets of half of Clouds. “I’ll inform her you’re here as soon as she’s free.”
    I’d like to point out at this juncture that I am not, and never have been, a client of Erlat’s, not in the usual sense. Along with Lastri, she’s one of the few attractive—in Erlat’s case very attractive—women I’ve never tried to talk into bed. In this case, I try not to think about why Erlat is here, running a brothel.
    It’s not my business to judge, and I try not to. I’ve nothing against ladies who work this profession. But Erlat’s from the ’Pit, and not just that: she was brought up in the pain factories. Erlat did this because it was better than all she’d previously known, because she was trained for it, and she’s happy that now she gets a choice of her clients; that, in her words, they cherish her. She once told me she knew nothing else, no other way to be. There’s something rather tragic about it, about