The Mortality Principle. Alex Archer
headed to the lobby.
Her cameraman had managed to beat her to the punch and was leaning against the wall, his camera still packed in its flight case at his feet. He was chatting with the doorman just inside the glass doors. They slid open as she approached him.
“Ready?” Annja asked as she felt the cool air on her face. The temperature had dropped a good five degrees since she’d come back from the restaurant. It was only going to get colder out there as the night wore on.
The streets were filled with late-night tourists following the curves of old cobbled streets around to the famous bridge to get their photographs taken and gaze up at the castle under the bright spotlights. The distant sound of traffic was barely audible over the music piping out of the row of tourist-trap restaurants with their tables spilling out into the streets. That was where the lucky ones would be congregating—those who could afford to go out for a good time knowing that they would have a warm bed to go home to when they’d finished having fun for the night. Plenty of them would be there until the early hours, but they would have taxis to take them to their homes or hotels. They weren’t the ones at risk.
“The guy on the door told me that there are a few places around here where people try to make a bed for the night,” Lars said.
She fell into step beside the big Swede. He was every bit the archetype of his people—big, blond and burly. “We were just talking about the murder that happened last night. He said that it wasn’t far from here. Want to go check it out?”
“I saw the body.”
“You did what? And you didn’t think to mention it? Way to bury the lead.”
“Consider it exhumed.” She quickened her pace. There was no point in hanging around so close to the main roads and the hotels this early in the evening. They needed to find the darker corners, away from the eyes of the kind of people who would be uncomfortable if they saw the genuine poverty of the city they’d come to visit.
“I’ve already marked on the map a few places we might want to check out,” she said as Lars hustled to keep up with her. They moved with a purpose. No one else did. That meant she had to twist and weave between milling people, looking for breaks in the press of bodies to step into. Part of the reason for the haste was to avoid questions. It was harder for Lars to pepper her with them if he was chasing to keep up with her. Part, though, was that she was eager to find the journalist. He was the only one who seemed to know anything about what was happening on the streets. That, of course, had prickled her suspicions, too. It wouldn’t have been the only time a killer had played the press for his own agenda. But she didn’t think Turek was the killer. Not that she had anything to base that assumption on, not even his picture.
“Let’s start with some background shots of the conditions these people are forced to live in.”
“This really doesn’t feel like Chasing History’s Monsters,” Lars said.
He was right, of course. There was a fine line between history repeating itself and exploitation, and she wasn’t sure which side of that line she was walking right now.
“We don’t need much, just a few shots to give the story some genuine impact.”
She hesitated for a second when she reached the alleyway where she’d seen the body that morning. There were strands of police tape tied to downspouts on either side of the mouth, but the tape had been snapped and hung loose against the wall. The black stain on the ground wasn’t going to stop anyone from using the alleyway as a shortcut to wherever he or she needed to be.
“This is where it happened?” Lars asked, looking at the dark patch at his feet.
Annja found herself nodding. She focused on the gloom between the buildings. The streetlights penetrated only a short way before the alleyway was swallowed in darkness. She could understand why the homeless man had picked it for his shelter.
She heard the sound of something shuffling in the darkness and her heart skipped a beat.
“Hello?” she called to whoever was hiding inside the alleyway. It wasn’t like she thought they’d stumbled on the killer, no matter what pop psychologists said about returning to the scene of the crime. “Hello?” she called again, feeling a tingle up her spine.
Instinctively Annja caught herself flexing her fingers, ready to reach into the otherwhere to call on her sword. She glanced around, looking at Lars, who was peering over her shoulder, camera trained on the darkness. Well, she thought, if we get killed by some psychopath, at least he’ll get the shot. It wasn’t the most comforting of thoughts.
Annja took a step closer to the darkness, her breath catching in her throat as she strained to hear whatever it was that was hiding back there.
The shuffling stopped.
Annja didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
But she could hear breathing.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Each one grew louder with every tentative step that she took into the darkness.
The space was suddenly flooded with light as the lamp in the camera behind her burst into bright life. The only darkness that remained was cut out inside her shadow.
The blinding light was greeted by a scuttle of panicked movement and then, a fraction of a second later, whoever it was hiding in the darkness charged straight at her in a whirl of panic.
The source of the movement was much closer than she’d expected.
A body swathed in streaming rags of shadow barreled into her, slamming Annja back against the wall.
The air was driven from her lungs by the impact. Even as she gasped for breath, she grabbed out with one hand, her fingers snatching at the material of her attacker’s sleeve. Annja hung on until the owner of the coat lost his footing, and she used her weight and his momentum to help him stumble and fall.
The man stared up at her. Blinded by the light of the camera he threw his hands in front of his face. Annja looked down at him. He was babbling, pleading. She couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but the meaning was obvious: please don’t hurt me. She released her grip. This wasn’t the killer. This was one of his potential victims.
Annja held her hands up in apology, trying to help him to his feet as she said, “Sorry. Sorry. My mistake.”
The man didn’t take her proffered hand. He scrambled away, the soles of his feet pushing him along on the ground as he grabbed for his precious few possessions, which had spilled out of his pockets as he charged her in fear. She felt nothing but pity for the man, unable to imagine what it would be like to walk a mile in his shoes.
The world was cruel, that much was undeniable. She’d seen more than enough of that cruelty to last a lifetime, but she was lucky. She also got to see the amazing stuff, too, the stuff that made life worth living.
Did he? she wondered, and then hated herself for so immediately patronizing the man without knowing a thing about his life or what had driven him to this desperate end.
“Please,” Annja said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a neatly followed twenty-euro note. The look of fear and panic in his eyes was replaced with one of surprise, then avarice, as he reached out and took the money from her. He spirited it away in a heartbeat like the greatest magician to walk the streets of Prague, then scrambled to his feet without a word of thanks and backed away from her, nodding over and over as he pushed his way past Lars, who had stopped taping the events.
The man hurried along the street, clutching a plastic bag that she assumed was stuffed with his tattered sleeping bag.
“I’m thinking we need a better plan,” Lars said, deadpan.
Annja didn’t argue.
As