Finch by Jeff VanderMeer Read online

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  PRAISE FOR FINCH

  “VanderMeer's Finch is . . . well, it's Farewell, My Lovely if Philip Marlowe worked for the pod-people while snacking on Alice's Wonderland mushrooms. It's The Name of the Rose if Sean Connery's character was a conglomeration of self-aware spores instead of a medieval monk. It's The Spy Who Came In from the Cold if all the agents were also testing psychedelic drugs and hung out in a postapocalyptic Emerald City instead of Eastern Europe. More importantly, Finch is a really good book-exciting, dark, suspenseful, and wonderfully weird.”

  -Tad Williams, internationally best-selling author

  “I can't remember ever reading a book like Finch. Audacious in technique, and extravagant in imagination, it has the rare quality of making the macabre poignant. In the midst of a disturbed and disturbing narrative landscape, Jeff VanderMeer gives us deeply sympathetic characters-especially Finch himself-who inspire us to care about their flawed and tyrannized world. I'm impressed.”

  -Stephen R. Donaldson, New York Times best-selling author

  “Jeff VanderMeer's stunning Finch opens with a claustrophobic interrogation and with a reluctant detective forced to solve a double murder. Finch quickly expands beyond genres and beyond the edges of Ambergris-its complex history, its many apocalypses-while remaining a deeply affecting and personal story. Told in a pitch-perfect voice and steeped in the unrelenting menace authentic to the best works of noir, Finch is a wonderful, sad, brutal, and beautiful book. A tour de force.”

  -Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep

  “An uncompromising and boldly executed dark fantasy novel that is as atmospheric as the best noir. Full of raw intensity, Finch explores a brutal and believable phantasmagorical world.”

  -Tom Piccirilli, author of Shadow Season and The Cold Spot

  “Trapped in a city of decomposing histories and an even more moldering future, John Finch could be the hero of a Martin Cruz Smith thriller, if that writer had taken to eating magic mushrooms. Jeff VanderMeer's Finch presents the most frighteningly oppressive setting since 1984, in a feverishly imaginative blend of pulp fiction and high art. I could scarcely tear myself away from this, one of the best novels I've read in years.”

  -Jeffrey Thomas, author of Deadstock

  “With the razor-edged prose and bloody grit of noir, Finch works its way to the core mystery of the city and gives us, ultimately, nothing short of the apotheosis of Ambergris. I loved it!”

  -Hal Duncan, author of Vellum: The Book of All Hours and Escape from Hell!

  “When all is said and done Finch will be among the best books of the year. From the fantasy perspective Jeff VanderMeer has introduced a new language into the lexicon with a clipped, telegraphic, hardboiled, James Ellroy-esque writing style that he bends to his will. From the crime side of things he has created a new noir language that retains the atmospherics of the past and weds them with the throbbing claustrophobia of the city. Not only is Finch one of the best books that I've read in years but it is also the book I've been waiting to read for years without knowing it.”

  -Brian Lindenmuth, mystery columnist

  “Finch is a revolution disguised as a police procedural, an unholy wedding of hard-boiled Hammett noir and Ballardian catastrophic landscape, presided over by the ghost of Philip K. Dick. In Finch the gun VanderMeer hung over the mantelpiece in City of Saints and Madmen is finally fired-with apocalyptic, revelatory consequences for the city of Ambergris and its people, human and gray cap alike. As in the best noir detective stories, the double murder at the center of Finch is only one loop in a much greater knot tied in the world itself; and as in the best apocalypses, if unraveling that knot resolves many of the world's great mysteries, it does so only to open the way to a new world wider and weirder than anything the old world's inhabitants could have imagined.”

  -David Moles, finalist for the John W. Campbell Award

  “Jeff VanderMeer's hard-boiled detective novel plunges readers into [a] vividly realized world of invasion, betrayal, and intrigue. A noir tale with flashes of Chandler and The Thing, Finch is gripping from the first page to the last. Stark and moving-it's amazing.”

  -Meg Gardiner, Edgar-winning author of The Memory Collector

  “Finch is a police procedural unlike anything you've read. Like Ed McBain on acid, the story flows with wild images, sharp dialogue and energy that keep you turning the pages. John Finch is a troubled cop in a troubled time and a troubled place. If that doesn't make for a great story, nothing does. Jeff VanderMeer shines as he creates a world and crime in Finch, that will enthrall any reader.”

  -James 0. Born, author of Burn Zone and Field of Fire

  “Fungal noir. Steampunk delirium. Paranoid spy thriller, quite literally, on 'shrooms. There's enough nightmare and grit in Finch to stock any urban fantasy fan's darkest imaginings for years to come. But VanderMeer's visionary brand of imagining is closing on Burroughs at his best. Devastated postwar cityscapes, desperate temporary allegiances of the soul, and creatures dragged up out of the worst withdrawal hallucination you can possibly imagine-like something Len Deighton might have written at the top of his game, if he'd dropped a tab or six beforehand. A clear signal, if one were ever needed, that [VanderMeer] remains one of modern fantasy's most original and fearless pioneers.”

  -Richard K. Morgan

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  Dradin, in Love

  The Book of Lost Places

  Veniss Underground

  City of Saints & Madmen

  Secret Life

  Why Should I Cut Your Throat?

  Shriek: An Afterword

  The Situation

  Secret Lives

  Predator: South China Sea

  Booklife

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  ANTHOLOGIES

  Leviathan I (with Luke O'Grady)

  Leviathan 2 (with Rose Secrest)

  Leviathan 3 (with Forrest Aguirre)

  Album Zutique

  The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited

  Diseases (with Mark Roberts)

  Best American Fantasy I (with Ann VanderMeer and Matthew Cheney)

  Best American Fantasy 2 (with Ann VanderMeer and Matthew Cheney)

  The New Weird (with Ann VanderMeer)

  Steampunk (with Ann VanderMeer)

  Fast Ships, Black Sails (with Ann VanderMeer)

  Last Drink Bird Head (with Ann VanderMeer)

  JEFF VANDERMEER

  UNDERLAND PRESS

  www.underlandpress.com

  Portland, Oregon

  FINCH Copyright © 2009 Jeff VanderMeer All quotes in Finch from Shriek: An Afterword are copyright © 2006 Tor Books and used by permission Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be emailed to [email protected].

  Underland Press www.tinderlandpress.com Portland, Oregon Cover image and design by John Coulthart Book design by Heidi Whitcomb All interior images by John Coulthart ISBN 978-0-9802260-1-0

  Printed in the United States of America Distributed by PGW First Underland Press Edition: November 2009 10987654321

  FOR ANN & FOR THE REBEL ANGELS: Vict
oria Blake John Coulthart John Klima Tessa Kum Dave Larsen Michael Moorcock Michael Phillips Cat Rambo Matt Staggs

  JEFF VANDERMEER

  “When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you're grateful to them for giving you the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.”

  -Lady in Blue, rebel broadcast

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  MONDAY

  Interrogator: What did you see then?

  Finch: Nothing. I couldn't see anything.

  I: Wrong answer.

  [howls and screams and sobbing]

  I: Had you ever met the Lady in Blue before?

  F: No, but I'd heard her before.

  I: Heard her where?

  F: On the fucking radio station, that's where.

  [garbled comment, not picked up]

  F: It's her voice. Coming up from the underground. People say.

  I: So what did you see, Finch?

  F: Just the stars. Stars. It was night.

  I: I can ask you this same question for hours, Finch.

  F: You wanted me to say I saw her. I said I saw her! I said it, damn you.

  I: There is no Lady in Blue. She's just a propaganda myth from the rebels.

  F: I saw her. On the hill. Under the stars.

  I: What did this apparition say to you, Finch? What did this vision say?

  Finch by Jeff VanderMeer

  1

  inch, at the apartment door, breathing heavy from five flights of stairs, taken fast. The message that'd brought him from the station was already dying in his hand. Red smear on a limp circle of green fungal paper that had minutes before squirmed clammy. Now he had only the door to pass through, marked with the gray caps' symbol.

  239 Manzikert Avenue, apartment 525.

  An act of will, crossing that divide. Always. Reached for his gun, then changed his mind. Some days were worse than others.

  A sudden flash of his partner Wyte, telling him he was compromised, him replying, “I don't have an opinion on that.” Written on a wall at a crime scene: Everyone's a collaborator. Everyone's a rebel. The truth in the weight of each.

  The doorknob cold but grainy. The left side rough with light green fungus.

  Sweating under his jacket, through his shirt. Boots heavy on his feet.

  Always a point of no return, and yet he kept returning.

  I am not a detective. I am not a detective.

  Inside, a tall, pale man dressed in black stood halfway down the hall, staring into a doorway. Beyond him, a dark room. A worn bed. White sheets dull in the shadow. Didn't look like anyone had slept there in months. Dusty floor. Even before he'd started seeing Sintra, his place hadn't looked this bad.

  The Partial turned and saw Finch. “Nothing in that room, Finch. It's all in here.” He pointed into the doorway. Light shone out, caught the dark glitter of the Partial's skin where tiny fruiting bodies had taken hold. Uncanny left eye in a gaunt face. Always twitching. Moving at odd angles. Pupil a glimmer of blue light at the bottom of a dark well. Fungal.

  “Who are you?” Finch asked.

  The Partial frowned. “I'm-”

  Finch brushed by the man without listening, got pleasure out of the push of his shoulder into the Partial's chest. The Partial, smelling like sweet rotting meat, walked in behind him.

  Everything was golden, calm, unknowable.

  Then Finch's eyes adjusted to the light from the large window and he saw: living room, kitchen. A sofa. Two wooden chairs. A small table, an empty vase with a rose design. Two bodies lying on the pull rug next to the sofa. One man, one gray cap without legs.

  Finch's boss Heretic stood framed by the window. Wearing his familiar gray robes and gray hat. Finch had never learned the creature's real name. The series of clicks and whistles sounded like “heclereticalic” so Finch called him “Heretic.” Highly unusual to see Heretic during the day.

  “Finch,” Heretic said. “Where's Wyte?” The wetness of its moist glottal attempt at speech made most humans uncomfortable. Finch tried hard to pretend the ends of all the words were there. A skill hard learned.

  “Wyte couldn't come. He's busy.”

  Heretic stared at Finch. A question in his eyes. Finch looked to the side. Away from the liquid green pupils and yellow where there should be white. Wyte had been sick off and on for a long time. Finch knew from what, but didn't want to. Didn't want to get into it with Heretic.

  “What's the situation?” Finch asked.

  Heretic smiled: rows and rows of needle lines set into a face a little like a squished-in shark's snout. Finch couldn't tell if the lines were gills or teeth, but they seemed to flutter and breathe a little. Wyte said he'd seen tiny creatures in there, once. Each time, a new nightmare. Another encounter to haunt Finch's sleep.

  “Two dead bodies,” Heretic said.

  “Two bodies?”

  “One and a half, technically,” the Partial said, from behind Finch.

  Heretic laughed. A sound like dogs being strangled.

  “Did the victims live in the apartment?” Finch asked, knowing the answer already.

  “No,” the Partial said. “They didn't.”

  Finch turned briefly toward the Partial, then back to Heretic.

  Heretic stared at the Partial and he shut up, began to creep around the living room taking pictures with his eye.

  “No one lived here,” Heretic said. “According to our records no one has lived here for over a year.”

  “Interesting,” Finch said. Didn't interest him. Nothing interested him. It bothered him. Especially that the Partial felt comfortable enough to answer a question meant for Heretic.

  The curtains had faded from the sun. Tears in the sofa like knife wounds. The vase looked like someone had started a small fire inside it. Stage props for two deaths.

  Was it significant that the window was open? For some reason he didn't want to ask if one of them had opened it. Fresh air, with just a hint of the salt smell from the bay.

  “Who reported this?” Finch asked.

  “An energy surge came from this location,” Heretic said. “We felt it. Then spore cameras confirmed it.”

  Energy surge? What kind of energy?

  Finch tried to imagine the rows and rows of living receivers underground, miles of them if rumor held true. Trying to process trillions of images from all over the city. How could they possibly keep up? The hope of every citizen.

  “Do you know the . . . source?” Finch asked. Didn't know if he understood what Heretic was telling him.

  “There is no trace of it now. The apartment is cold. There are just these bodies.”

  “How does that help me?” he wanted to say.

  Finch usually dealt with theft, domestic abuse, illegal gatherings. Flirted with investigating rebel activity, but turned that over to the Partials if necessary. Tried to make sure it wasn't necessary. For everyone's sake.

  Murder only if it was the usual. Crimes of passion. Revenge. This didn't look like either. If it was murder.

  “Anyone live in the apartments next door?”

  “Not any more,” the Partial replied. “They all left, oddly enough, soon after these two ... arrived.”

  “Which means they made a sound.” Or sounds.

  “I'll interrogate anyone left in the building after we finish here,” the Partial said.

  What a pleasure that'll be for them.

  Still, Finch didn't volunteer to do it. Not yet. Maybe after. Not much worse than door-to-door interviews in unfriendly places. Many didn't believe his job should exist.

  “What do you think, Finch?” Heretic asked. Just a hint of mischief in that voice. Laced with it. Just enough to catch the nuance.

  I think I just walked in the door a few minutes ago.

  The bodies lay next to each other, beside the sofa.

  Finch frowned. “I've never seen anything quite like it.”

  The man lay on his side, left hand stretched out toward the gray cap's hand. The gray cap lay facedown, a
rms flopped out at right angles.

  “Might be a foreigner. From the clothes.”

  The man could've been forty-five or fifty, with dark brown hair, dark eyebrows, and a beard that appeared to be made from tendrils of fungus. That wasn't unusual. But his clothes were. He wore a blue shirt long out of fashion. Strange, tight-fitting long pants. Dirty black boots.

  “He's not from the city,” Heretic said. Again, an inflection that bothered Finch. A statement or a question?

  What's on his mind?

  Finch squatted beside the bodies. Took out his useless pen and his useless pad of paper. Above him, the Partial leaned over to take a picture.

  The dead gray cap looked like every other gray cap. Except for the one glaring lack.

  “I don't know what caused the injury to the other one, sir.”

  I don't know what caused the leg situation.

  “When we find out,” Heretic said, “we will be just as understated.”

  The exposed cross section, cut almost precisely at the waist, fascinated Finch. He almost forgot himself, poked at the tissue with his pen.

  The cut had been so clean, so precise, that there was no tearing. No hemorrhaging. Finch could see layers. Gray. Yellow. Green. A core of dark red. (A question he was too cautious to ask: Was it always that dark, or only in death?) Within the core, Finch saw a hint of organs.

  “Is this ... normal?” Finch asked Heretic.

  “Normal?”

  “The lack of blood, I mean, sir,” Finch said.

  Gray caps bled. Finch knew that. Not like a stream or a gout, even when you cut them deep, but a steady drip from a leaky faucet. Puncture wounds healed almost immediately. It took a long time and a lot of patience to kill a gray cap.

  “No, it's not normal.” The humid weight of Heretic was at his side now. A smell like garbage and burnt glass. Made him nauseous.

  “None of this is normal,” the Partial ventured. Ignored.

  Finch looked up at Heretic. From that angle: the pale wattled skin of Heretic's long throat.