Free Eternal Empire by Alec Nevala-Lee

away. With so many other things on her mind, she had forgotten all about it, and she didn’t want to admit that her bridesmaid’s dress was still hanging, unaltered, in the closet of her apartment in Vauxhall.
    A moment later, they parked by a strip of vacant land. Opening the glove box, Wolfe took out two flashlights, handing one to Asthana as they emerged from the car into the damp afternoon.
    Up the street, a panda car was waiting. As they approached, the door opened and a heavyset constable appeared, his helmet sheathed in a plastic bag. “Afternoon, Officer. It’s an honor to meet you.”
    Wolfe was never quite sure how to respond to such remarks, which reminded her that there were those who still knew her only as the woman who had taken down Karvonen. “You’re sure we can get into the house?”
    The constable was already heading around to the trunk of his car. “Yes, with the right tools. Won’t be a moment.”
    From the trunk, he took a pair of work gloves, a pry bar, and a flashlight of his own. “Used to be a nice neighborhood. Then the road went to three lanes, which ate up the gardens. They were going to do more, but—”
    He gave a shrug, his boots squelching in the grass as they crossed the overgrown lot. Wolfe knew the rest of the story. Most of the houses had been bought up years ago with compulsory purchases. By the time the plan to expand the road was discarded, many of the homes had already been demolished, while those that remained had been boarded up and left to decay.
    The house whose address had been found in Rogozin’s atlas was a forlorn shell with bay windows, its panes now broken or covered in grime, with ivy carpeting the moldering walls. Moving past the weedy garden, they approached the door, which had been boarded up. As the constable set to work with the pry bar, Wolfe noticed that some of the nails in the plywood looked surprisingly new.
    Once the boards were gone, the constable switched on his flashlight, pointing it into the house. “I’d watch your step, if I were you—”
    They looked through the open doorway, from which there arose a suffocating smell of dampness. Asthana whistled softly. “Bloody incredible. I can’t believe this is still standing.”
    Wolfe could only agree. Aside from a narrow strip just inside the door, all of the floorboards had been torn up, revealing the thick gray beams underneath. Directing her flashlight toward the gaping hole at her feet, she could see stakes in the basement pointing upward like petrified trees. The ground below was covered in shards of broken porcelain.
    â€œBailiffs hit this place pretty hard,” the constable explained helpfully. “Smashed it all so the squatters wouldn’t take over.”
    â€œSo it seems,” Wolfe said. Looking around the ruin of the house, she saw at once that you wouldn’t walk along the joists if you could possibly help it. “Give me the gloves. I’m going down.”
    With some assistance from the others, Wolfe lowered herself into the basement, her shoes landing with a crunch. Beyond the semicircle of light cast by the open door, it was pitch-black, the air heavy with the smell of wet wood. Beneath the dripping water, she heard a soft scurrying sound.
    She paused to tuck her pants into her socks. Then she reached up for the flashlight and pry bar, which the constable handed down, saying uncertainly, “Perhaps I should go instead—”
    Wolfe eyed the man’s ample frame. “No, I’ll need both of you to help me back up. Besides, I’ve had all my shots.”
    Switching on her flashlight, she went into the shadows. With every step, the smell of dampness grew stronger. Countless scraps of wood and flooring material had fallen down to this level as the bailiffs went to work with their hammers and bolsters. Seasoning everything were the small gray clots of mouse turds.
    She let her light