Rojan Dizon 02 - Before the Fall Read Free

too. This one had previously been a front for a Rapture dealer and off-their-faces lowlives had a habit of wandering in and asking if they could score. Some of them got quite unhappy when all they got was a lecture from Dendal about the evils of drugs, beer, sex and anything else he could think of before he sent them on to the other huge drawback of the offices.
    The temple next door.
    I could hear them now, chanting and praying their sanitised, Ministry-approved prayers. People playing with their imaginary friend. Not that I would ever say that to Dendal. He gets very focused when the Goddess is involved. I suppose a bit of faith gave people hope, which was about all that could be said for it. They needed hope now more than ever.
    At least we were far up enough that some of the little power there was ran a light at the end of the street, so even if we didn’t see more than a minute or two of the sun at noon, and a hazy fourth-hand light after that, bounced down through the mirrors, we could see where we were going. Sometimes I wished we didn’t have the light; all it illuminated was grubby, damp and depressing.
    I aimed the boy at the office door. He would come in handy as a shield against Lastri—secretary, harridan and person who made sure Dendal ate occasionally and didn’t bump into anything too hard while he was away with the fairies. Also one of the very few women over eighteen and under about forty-five I’ve ever met who, despite her severe and primly attractive features, I have never tried to talk into bed. I’d never make it out alive.
    She smiled at the boy as we came in, put a motherly hand around his shoulder and steered him to the small kitchen at the back while flinging me a look that said it hoped I strangled myself in my sleep.
    Dendal was at his desk in the corner; he always was. His grey hair puffed round him like an errant cloud and his thin, monk-like face was pinched in what looked like concentration but might just as likely have been a daydream. More likely even. Paperwork surrounded him, as did an array of candles that put the temple next door to shame. I said a quick hello and got a vague, dreamy look in return. Not quite with it, our Dendal. Oh, he’s a genius all right, smartest mage I ever met. When he’s anywhere approaching reality that is, which is about once a week if I’m lucky.
    “Hello, Perak,” he murmured. At least he’d got the gender right, if not the sibling. Then something on one of his pieces of paper caught his eye and he burrowed into his little fairyland again. He only really concentrated on his messages. To him it was his Goddess-given duty whether he used his magic or not, to help people communicate. It looked like today he was up to the more mundane pastime of writing letters for the majority of people around here who couldn’t. No magic, no dislocated fingers, just Dendal’s vague tuneless hum and the scritch-scratch of pen on paper that had been part of my life for so long I only noticed it when it stopped.
    So far, so normal.
    I chucked my jacket on to the sofa squashed in the corner, patted Griswald, the stuffed tiger, on the head and aimed for my desk. At least the boy hadn’t generated any paperwork, for which I was thankful. I checked the desk carefully, making sure it hadn’t laid any ambushes for me, and sat down, ready to do something about my hand. At this rate it was never going to heal, what with finding people and my little sideline at Dwarf’s lab.
    One of Lastri’s pointed notes sat on the desktop, a superior sneer in the slope of the handwriting. Another boy to find but at least I had a name to go on, so maybe I could get away with just searching some records rather than buggering up my hand any more than I already had. It would have been even better if someone was actually paying me for all this searching, but all I’d got so far was Dendal’s assurance that I was doing the Goddess’s work. All very well, but she wasn’t paying my rent.