Wire on the Fence

Lenka

The water was thirty-eight degrees.

I knew the exact number because three years on riverfront paramedic triage burns hypothermia curves into your brain. At thirty-eight degrees, the cold shock response hits inside sixty seconds. Peripheral blood vessels clamp down hard to save the vital organs. The respiratory center in the medulla spikes, demanding a massive, involuntary gasp that will drown you on the spot if your chin dips beneath the surface.

My steel-toed work boots were sunken three inches into harbor silt. The black tide pressed against my lower ribs, thick with heavy bunker fuel and rotten bilge sediment.

Above me, the iron trapdoor stayed shut. Radek’s heavy slide bolt remained thrown.

Total darkness.

I held my red nylon jump bag against my collarbone with one arm, keeping the zipper clear of the oily scum. My eight-inch skinning knife rested tight against my right thigh beneath wet denim. The acid-and-tallow slurry on my skin felt stiff, like a frozen layer of candle wax sealing off my sweat glands.

Trapped.

My inner wolf paced a frantic circle against my ribcage. Her claws dragged across my lungs, sharp and wild. She hated the enclosed dark. She wanted out. She wanted air, open sky, violence, and teeth.

Stay down, I told her, grinding my molars together. Shut up and breathe.

I touched the side of my neck, pressing two fingers into the soft groove beside my larynx. Gentle, steady pressure on the carotid sinus. I counted the pulses against my fingertips. Eighty-four beats a minute. Too fast. I pulled cold air through my nose, holding it against my diaphragm for four seconds, then released it slowly through parted lips.

Sixty-eight beats. The shivers stayed locked behind my collarbone.

Through the four-inch cedar floorboards above my head, an iron door hinge screamed.

A draft of wet river air cut through the narrow gaps in the ceiling timbers. Heavy rubber soles hit the iron threshold.

"Radek."

The voice was thick and dry, raspy from thirty years of cheap tobacco and station-house filter coffee. Filip Vlasz.

"Detective," Radek replied from the center of the pump room. His voice was flat and steady. "You're five miles outside your precinct boundary."

"My boundary is anywhere the Ostrov River touches," Vlasz said.

The detective's boots crossed the floorboards. Each step made the old cedar beams groan above my forehead. A fine shower of dried harbor dust drifted down through the seams, speckling my wet eyelashes. I blinked it away without moving my neck.

"You got a warrant, Filip?" Radek asked.

"For an abandoned municipal pump house?" A lighter clicked. The unmistakable, sweet-chemical stench of a filterless cigarette drifted down through the floorboards, cutting through the damp stench of stagnant bilge. "Since when does the Zemanek pack need a piece of paper to talk to an old acquaintance?"

"Since Tibor put a curfew on the south docks," Radek said. "You shouldn't be here alone."

"I'm not here on syndicate business," Vlasz said. "I'm here about a body in County General."

The water surged against my solar plexus as the river tide outside crept another half inch up the pier pilings. My toes were entirely numb. My fingers gripping the jump bag strap had turned to stiff wood.

Listen, I told myself. Pay attention.

"Whose body?" Radek asked.

"Otakar," Vlasz said. He blew out a thick stream of smoke. "Found him dumped behind the switching yard at six this morning. Ventricular fibrillation. Both lungs full of fluid. Two perfect rectangular second-degree burns right over his sternum."

Silence stretched across the floorboards above me.

"Sounds like he ran into an industrial transformer," Radek said smoothly.

"Bullshit," Vlasz snapped. "Those burns didn't come from a rail line transformer. They came from a portable defibrillator. Medical grade. Lifepak or Philips. Three hundred and sixty joules, pressed straight to his bare chest with conductive electrode gel."

My pulse jumped. I pressed my neck again, forcing the beat back down into my chest.

"Otakar is a street brawler," Radek said. "Maybe he tried to roll the wrong ambulance crew."

"No ambulance was dispatched to the rail yard this morning," Vlasz said. "Dispatch logs are clean. But Station Twelve had a unit run a water rescue off Pier Nine at three o'clock. Medic Four."

My lungs tightened. Did Vlasz know my name?

"What about it?" Radek asked.

"The rig came back to station with an empty jump bag," Vlasz said. "The paramedic on duty was an orphan girl. Lenka Zoldytek. Clocked out at four-thirty. Never made it home. Her apartment door on Kester Street looks like someone took a hydraulic spreader to the frame."

The detective paused. The sole of his boot scraped against the wood, stopping less than two feet from where the iron hatch was set.

"Where is she, Radek?"

"Never heard of her," Radek said.

"Don't lie to me," Vlasz said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rasp. "I've worked the river beat since you were a pup running errands for the old regime. Tibor called Captain Horvath at seven this morning. Put a black flag on the girl. Ordered all river precinct cars to stay east of the switching tracks."

"If Tibor gave an order," Radek said, "you ought to obey it."

"Tibor doesn't own me," Vlasz said.

"He owns your pension," Radek countered. "He owns your captain. He owns the bridge authorities."

"He doesn't own what happened twenty years ago," Vlasz growled.

The floor creaked. Radek moved. It was a slight shift in weight, but I could hear the lethal balance in his boots.

"Watch your mouth, Filip."

"I stood on the Old Iron Bridge that night," Vlasz said. The lighter clicked again, nervous and sharp. "I was twenty-four. A rookie patrolman in wet trousers holding back the human press. The official report said the suspension cable snapped from structural fatigue. It said Anton Blazsek died from blunt force trauma when the center span collapsed into the gorge."

My breath hitched. The name hit me like a slap across the jaw.

Anton Blazsek.

"You signed that report," Radek said coldly.

"I signed a forged summary under Horvath's direct order," Vlasz said. His voice shook with an old, curdled rage. "Because before the river divers hauled the wreckage out, I saw the corpse on the muddy bank. Anton's chest wasn't crushed by steel girders. His throat had been shredded by claws. The sternum had been cracked open from the inside out."

The hold shrank around me. The freezing water felt hotter against my ribs, boiling with sudden adrenaline.

Anton Blazsek hadn't died in an industrial accident. He had been butchered on the bridge, and the city's police force had falsified the coroner's certificate to let Tibor take the docks.

"Anton was weak," Radek said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, monotone edge. "He let the human unions bleed the docks."

"He kept the peace," Vlasz snapped. "Tibor turned the riverfront into a slaughterhouse. And now there's a girl in the city who carries the old bloodline. Otakar didn't get fried by a random junkie. He got dropped by someone who knows anatomy."

"You're making up ghost stories," Radek said.

"If Tibor gets his hands on her," Vlasz said, "the whole district burns. He's paranoid, Radek. He thinks she has Anton's seal. He thinks she has the authority to challenge the pack line."

"She has nothing," Radek said. "She was raised by human foster homes. She fixes broken collarbones and bandages drunks for twenty-two dollars an hour. She doesn't even know what she is."

"Then why did you pull Pavol off her in the rail yard?"

The silence above was absolute.

I stopped breathing entirely.

How did Vlasz know that? Pavol must have talked. Or someone had watched the switching yard from the upper overpass.

"You're playing a suicidal game, Krizsek," Vlasz said softly. "You're Tibor's Second. If he finds out you're hiding the Blazsek heir, he won't just challenge you. He'll hang you from the bridge cables by your tendons."

"Are you arresting me, Detective?" Radek asked.

"I don't have the stomach for suicide," Vlasz said. His boots turned toward the door. "I'm leaving. But you need to know what's coming down the road. Horvath cleared the docks. No police dispatch for the next six hours. Zemanek's scout team crossed the north canal twenty minutes ago."

Radek didn't answer.

"Get her out of the city," Vlasz muttered. "Or put a bullet in her yourself. Because if Tibor brings his hounds down here, this whole pier is going into the river."

The heavy exterior door groaned open. Vlasz stepped out into the rain. The metal latch slammed shut, echoing through the concrete vault like a gunshot.

Above me, Radek took three rapid steps. The heavy iron slide bolt clattered back.

The hatch swung upward.