The Last City by Nina D'Aleo Page A

consented.
    The Androt led them up the path, towards the mansion house. She glanced back several times with nervous eyes. Silho noted the distinct lack of light in the yard compared with the other houses. Garden sculptures crouched in the shadows like stalking beasts. The Androt showed them up a set of stairs and through open double doors into the lobby of the mansion. Silho noticed two things immediately: the biting cold and the smell of blood. Her eyes followed two grand staircases leading up from either side of the lobby into a second storey. A chandelier twinkled above them. Works of art hung on the lobby walls, mostly portraits of sad-looking girls, barely dressed and strewn over lounges. Silho avoided staring too long at the pictures. She looked instead at Copernicus Kane and saw, by the rapid movement of his eyes, that he was taking in the surroundings – not just looking at but beyond and through . He felt her stare and turned towards her, studying her with the same deep scrutiny. She quickly lowered her eyes, nerves buzzing inside her.
    The Androt maid closed the door behind them and said, ‘If you wish, please follow me.’
    Copernicus nodded and she led them again, through the lobby and into a corridor dimly lit by overhead globes. They passed many rooms big enough to swallow Silho’s apartment whole and headed towards the end of the corridor where a light shone brighter. They reached the doorway and the Androt stepped aside. She gestured for them to go in and bowed her head. Copernicus and Diega entered first; Jude said a quiet thankyou to the Androt and followed them. Eli went after him, tripping and almost falling on the carpet. Silho grabbed his arm to steady him. He gave a nervous giggle and whispered, ‘ Oops ’. They entered together and Silho heard the maid’s footsteps retreating back down the hallway.
    The room was a parlour with tasteful tapestries lining the walls, delicate china displayed in glass cabinets, a large fireplace with various sculptures posed above it, and, on the ground in front of the fireplace, a hollowed-out corpse lying in the centre of a shaggy rug. A dark red stain had spread out around the body of the middle-aged woman.
    Silho’s eyes were drawn to the corpse’s glassy dead stare, then down to the terrible gaping wound in her stomach and chest. The wound looked as though it had been cauterised, like the two other hollowed-out victims at the Moris-Isles crime scene. Silho noted no signs of torture apparent at first glance, but the bruising on the corpse’s legs and arms, and the overturned and smashed objects and drag marks all over the carpet suggested a violent struggle. Silho immediately noticed an inconsistency. The corpse was a human-breed with red blood, but the rug and walls were also splattered with white machine-breed blood, so much of it that she doubted even a fast-healing Androt could survive the loss.
    So there had to be a second body somewhere.
    The sound of the commander’s voice broke Silho’s concentration. ‘Mrs Parkingham,’ Copernicus greeted a short woman, wearing a lavender satin dressing gown. She stood beside the fireplace staring at the blood-stained walls. Two Androt maids flanked her.
    The woman jolted and turned. She was a human-breed with the petite, pinched features of rabbit heritage. She stared at the commander with bloodshot eyes streaming tears behind thick glasses and held a scrunched handkerchief close to her nose. It gave an occasional twitch.
    ‘I’m Commander Copernicus Kane of the Oscuri Trackers.’ He gestured behind him. ‘My team.’
    Silho noticed everyone else had dispersed around the room, as though by silent command, to do their own tasks. Jude and SevenM were examining the shattered window of the sitting parlour, a possible entry or exit route for the murderer. Diega and Eli knelt on either side of the corpse. Silho didn’t know what she should be doing, so she stepped back to stand beside Jude and continued to observe