by Norris Black
Before I could protest the slanderous insinuation tossed my way, Mara continued, some of the chill in her voice seeping away, replaced by what could best be described as cautious amusement.
"So. Gideon Brown, infamous Professional Skeptic. Word on the street is you're retired, or dead. I expect the latter rumor is more a result of wishful thinking than anything. Please tell me, what foul tide brought you to my door looking like"—she wrinkled her nose and waved a hand in the direction of my blood-encrusted clothing—"that. While you're at it, tell me why I shouldn't call Garm back and have him gobble you up. He has been looking a mite peckish of late."
Taking a deep breath to respond I caught a whiff of the odor emanating from me. Fallen's balls I was rank. "I'll tell you everything, but first, can I borrow your shower? I'd be doing us both a favor."
Mara might be cross with me, but information was her coin in trade and me showing up looking like I did spoke of a story I knew she simply couldn't resist hearing. Wordlessly she nodded and pointed me in the direction of the bathroom while taking a few prudent steps back to avoid getting caught downwind of my pungent aroma.
The scent of some combination of lavender and vanilla filled the air as I exited the shower. It was pleasant, but at the same time a little embarrassing. A gray button-up shirt and a pair of tan slacks were waiting for me, folded up in a tidy pile on a wooden stool inside the bathroom door.
"I hope they fit, I had to guess at the size," said Mara as I stepped into the main living area. Mara kept a spartan quarters. Walls had been torn back to the concrete on three walls and the floor was covered by overlapping throw rugs with a dozen or so giant cushions thrown in a rough circle at the center. The only other furnishings in the spacious room was a thick oak table stained a dark brown. The table was currently bare, but I'd seen it covered in everything from simple meals to arcane instruments I didn't know the names for. Floor to ceiling windows ran the entire length of the fourth wall, giving a panoramic view of the city.
Mara sat in a massive cushion that almost swallowed up her diminutive frame and gestured for me to have a seat at a nearby cushion. The one she pointed to was a virulent green in color and I couldn't help but note it was the most threadbare of the lot. Mismatched patches were sewn on it in several places and a large stain covered one side like a birthmark. Mara knew how to send a message.
As I lowered myself down, I nervously checked the room for any sign of the creature known as Garm but saw no trace of him. Mara's place was much larger than what most people ever saw, this sitting room used as a sort of firewall between the outside world and her inner chambers. My longcoat was still crumpled on the floor where I had left it. Mara had obviously disposed of my other clothes but hadn't touched the coat. Outside of some blood splatter and a few scorch marks, it had come out relatively unscathed. Sitting on a small wooden coaster beside my cushion was a glass tumbler filled with some ice and a rich brown liquid. My nose twitched at the scent of whiskey. I would've kissed Mara if I wasn't reasonably certain such an action would end with me covered in blood for a second time that day—my own this time—so I settled for expressing my praise verbally.
"I think I love you."
She snorted. "You better be talking to that drink in your hand. I'm still cross at you and wondering if I should just have you pitched off the roof and call it even."
One of the problems with Mara was you could never tell if she was kidding or not. While I didn't think she'd throw me off a roof, I didn't know that for certain. I chose to proceed with caution.
"I looked for you," she said, her tone serious. "After that Lensky fiasco. I even went to your office. It looked like a prison riot spent the weekend there.
Lensky. A darkness surged in the back of my mind at the name. Memories flickered. An infectious smile, radiant below a fall of curly brown hair. A room shrouded in plastic, crimson everywhere, a hooting hyena laugh, the feel of a gun in my hand and the scent of burnt gunpowder in my nose. I shook the thoughts free, sticking them back in the black drawer they crawled out of and focused in on Mara as she continued to speak.
“I'm pretty sure there was a wild animal living in the wreckage."
"Oh shit, that'd be Louie. I wondered where he'd gotten off to.” I made a mental note to swing by the old office and pick up the cat. Louie could take care of himself, better than I could these days if the events of this morning were any indication. Still, I felt responsible for the angry little ball of razor blades. He had disappeared after the chaos that had ended in me shutting my business down for good, but it sounds like he had found his way home again. "As for the office, I suspect you already know what went down there. Besides, there's more pressing matters to talk about at the moment."
"So it seems. Well, let's hear it." She did her best to hide it, but I knew her well enough to catch the hint of excitement in her voice. If Mara had any weakness it was her driving need to know everything about everything, and she could smell a good story like a wolf scenting blood.
"Have you heard of a guy who goes by the—absolute ridiculous I might add—name of Murder Rowe?"
She arched an eyebrow. "You haven’t? My dear Gideon, where exactly have you been hiding for the past year?"
The bottom of a whiskey bottle, I thought to myself a little guiltily, before swallowing that guilt along with a mouthful of alcohol. It burned all the way down my throat and set up a little forge in my stomach. Out loud I said, "Just been keeping my head down and my nose clean. After the whole thing with Lensky, I kind of unplugged from everything."
"Fair enough, that was... messy." For a moment I worried she was going to press me for more. It's not a subject I really wanted to discuss with anyone. Instead, she said. "As for Rowe, he showed up on the ganger scene about a year ago. No one knows where he came from, it doesn't appear he worked with any of the other crews. None of my usual sources can dig up anything on him. The man's a ghost."
I whistled in surprise. Mara prided herself on knowing everything about all the major players. The fact she got stonewalled must have pissed her off something huge.
"Anyway, he pops out of nowhere to set up shop in the fourth ward with a couple of rough-and-ready henchmen and a lot of cash at his disposal. Within a month he was running half the gangers in the ward, within two he had the whole area under his thumb. No one does anything there without his say-so first."
"Markus just let that happen?" Mad Man Markus had been the Wardlord of Crash City's fourth ward for close to twenty years. He was a mean-spirited brute of a man who didn't like anyone he couldn't crush under his boot.
"Gods' bones, you really have been under a rock. Markus is dead. Word is he wanted to bring Rowe to heel and had been saying some insulting things about him. He ended up a corpse spiked to the door of the local Seraph's office for his trouble. Both his eyes had been cut out and sewed up in his mouth. I guess Rowe thought Markus should've watched his tongue."
"This guy sounds like a peach. Wait, they nailed him to the door of the Seraph's office?"
She nodded. "Markus had the locals in his pocket and this was Rowe's way of sending a message to both sides of the law he wasn't to be messed with. Now, why are you asking about Crash City's newest homicidal crime boss?"
Wetting my throat with another sip of liquid gold first, I told her the whole story. Well, the majority of it anyway. I decided to leave out the multiple murals featuring my name that had been cropping up. I was keeping that tidbit to myself until I had a better idea as to why it was happening.
For the most part she sat and took it in, those amber eyes of her glowing bright with interest. A couple of times she stopped to ask some probing questions on a detail or two I might have glossed over. By the time I finished both my throat, and my glass, were dry.
She frowned, a troubled look clouding her face. Mara was rarely troubled by anything. That sight alone was almost as frightening as anything else I had seen so far that day. An image of white spidery limbs scurrying through a blood-soaked inferno fla
shed through my mind. Alright, not quite as frightening, but still, her expression had me worried.
"What you're telling me is simply not possible," she said finally, holding up a hand to forestall any argument. "I'm not saying I don't believe you. What I'm saying is, you described an impossibility. Look, how much do you know about the wyrd?"
"I guess just what everyone does," I said with a shrug. "It's where wychs get their power from."
"Essentially correct, though it's a lot more complicated than that. Think of it as an electric current, running through everything and tying it all together. It's the base energy powering all reality. For most people, it's an unseen, unknowable force. But some rare individuals are sensitive to it, they can feel it and, with the proper training and dedication, can manipulate it just a bit. They can tweak reality at its core. For example," she gestured at my empty glass, and I was surprised to see it refilled. "It's not without risk of course, the more you try to pull from it, the more it pulls back. There have been many an overzealous wych who have had their screaming soul pulled into the void."
"Sounds unpleasant. Look, Mara, I appreciate the lesson, but I'm not sure what the point is."
"Because you need to understand how it works. Otherwise you won't grasp why what you’ve told me is problematic, to say the least. Now, where was I?"
"Soul sucking," I said as I took another sip of my drink and sighed contentedly.
"Oh yes, that's something to always be avoided. It's why some resort to binding instead of trying to tap the wyrd directly. You see, there are things that hunt the wyrd, predators that call it home. Dangerous things, but useful if you know how to wrangle them."
"You’re talking about daemons."
"Yes, daemons. If one has the knowledge, and enough willpower, they can pluck one of those denizens from their place in the wyrd and bind them to our reality. Usually into some prepared object. Tie it down with sigils and spells and force it to do their bidding. Once bound the wych can wield the daemon's power as if it was their own. They can move invisibly, turn air into fire, erase memories. The more potent the daemon, the more ability its binder has. By binding you can wield the powers of the wyrd without worry of being pulled into it. It has its own dangers of course. Botch a binding and the daemon will rip your soul from your body and carry it back to its lair to suckle on for all eternity."
"There seems to be an awful lot of soul sucking going on in this whole wyrd business."
"Occupational hazard. As I was saying, binding is done exclusively with physical objects, typically a weapon of some sort as daemons' inherent violent nature makes for a stronger connection. A dagger maybe, or a gun."
She emphasized that last word in a way I found curious, but she continued before I could think to question it.
"But these, what did you call them? Corpse spiders? An apt name I suppose if a little grotesque."
"Grotesque doesn't even cover it."
"Hush, I'm trying to tell you something. That's not how any of this works. You can't bind a daemon to flesh like that. It won't hold. They'd burst free almost instantly for anyone foolish enough to try. And that's with only one, you're talking about dozens. What you're describing? That does not happen"
"But it happened."
"But it happened," she said in resigned agreement. "I must say, I find this all terribly distressing. It's like spending your life learning to become a master painter only to find someone has found a way to make their paintings walk about the room and make dinner."
"What about smokey?"
"That's concerning in its own right. I might be able to pull off some of those tricks, freezing time though, I've never heard of any wych powerful enough for something like that. Tampering with your memories to make you think that's what happened would be easier, but that sort of thing leaves marks and I've already checked through yours and didn't see any of the telltale signs."
My face went pale. My thoughts weren't so saintly that I was comfortable with an attractive woman rooting around in them like she was looking for an old key in a junk drawer.
"Relax," she said with a slight smile. "I only looked for signs of tampering, your personal thoughts are safe. Speaking of safe, I've decided to not throw you off the roof after all. Though, given what you've told me, you might've considered it a mercy if I did. Now let's get to the point. What do you need from me?"
"I need a place to lie low for a while until I figure out what's going on. I'd also be grateful for any information you could dig up on that same front."
It was one hell of an ask, but I was in deep water even by my usual standards. It was clear I had somehow pissed off some very dangerous people. The type of people Mara would not want showing up on her doorstep, beastly guardian or no beastly guardian. No sane person would. But I was desperate.
Mara considered the request, one delicate finger tapping against the side of her face as I watched with apprehension.
"No," she said. "You can't stay here."
I tried to hide my disappointment. If I didn't get out ahead of whatever shit storm had decided to rain down on me, and fast, I expected I was going to have a very bad, not to mention very short, rest of my life.
"Fuck." Okay, maybe I wasn't hiding my disappointment particularly well.
"I didn't say I couldn't help, just that you couldn't stay here. Rowe is shrewd enough to know your past connections. He'll have someone keeping an eye on this place as soon as he realizes you're still alive. But there is someone who might be able to shelter you, for a time at least."
"And who exactly might this mysterious savior be?"
"Happy Jack."
"Happy J—? No. Actually, let me rephrase that. Fuck no. You might as well just throw me off the roof after all or call your furry friend in and have him do away with me right now." A low growl, seemed to come from nowhere and reverberated through the room, the powerful animal musk once again stinging my nostrils. "To be clear, that was not a serious suggestion," I said, yelling the last part in no particular direction. Despite having heard, and smelt it, I couldn't see the beast anywhere even with the room being fully open to view.
"Stupid animals and their stupid lack of a sense of humor," I said, mumbling the words under my breath. "Look," I said, returning my attention to Mara. "You know as well as any Jack is more likely to welcome me with a gutting hook than open arms. I've cost him too much business over the years. I don't fancy screaming 'I'm retired' over and over while he gets up close and personal with my entrails."
"He won't do any such thing," said Mara, with a confidence only one of us felt.
"And what makes you so sure?"
"Two reasons. First off because I'll ask him not to. He still likes me."
"And the second?"
"Rowe's been making some threatening noises in Jack's direction. It's only a matter of time before he starts trying to add chunks of Jack's territory to his little growing empire. Helping you puts a spike in his rival's tires. He's not going to be able to turn that opportunity down. I am however, going to need a couple of hours to set things up."
Rocks and hard places, frying pans and fires. Story of my life. Oh well, At least I could use the time to go and retrieve Louie.
"Alright, I don't see I have much in the way of better options. You sure he's not going to stick a knife in me on sight?"
She smiled a tight mischievous smile, like a cat toying with a mouse.
"Oh, I never said that. I can only promise it won't be fatal."
Chapter 6
Night descended on the city as I traversed the maze of back streets between Five Points Plaza and my old office. The throngs crowding the city’s streets during the day evaporated as soon as the sun slipped below the horizon. Crash City became a different place when the light in the sky went out. A more dangerous place where the dark things come out to hunt.
Even with the increased peril nightfall brought, I was grateful for the extra cover the darkness afforded. By now Rowe would've gotten word about the fire at his clu
b and might have people out looking for me, not to mention all the other unknowns apparently hunting for my head. I can be a little abrasive at times, but this seemed a little extreme.
This section of the city was familiar to me, so it didn’t take long before I found myself standing in the dark mouth of an alley across from my old building. By now the darkness of night had fully enfolded the city in its embrace and the streetlights clicked on, one by one. There was a time the lights bathing the streets would've been golden in color, like faded memories of sunlight. That was before they hooked the grid up to the Battery. Now the light flooding from the lamps painted everything in an unnatural bluish hue.
Brickstone Block was predominately worn-out office buildings, most close to a century old. More than half the office spaces were vacant, the remaining rented out by people who couldn't afford anything better—those either starting out, dreams still fresh and vibrant, or those stubbornly clinging to the dregs of steeply declining careers, vainly struggling to return to some lost golden era before life carried them off kicking and screaming into the final goodbye. As you can imagine, I fit into the second category more neatly than I'd like to think about.
The street was deserted in either direction. The daytime denizens of the block would've locked up their offices and been well on their way home by this time and there weren't any tenements or retail establishments in the area. Brickstone was for work, not life.
Light spilled from a third story window, two doors down from the darkened outline of my office building. A figure stood silhouetted in the yellow light for a moment before moving away from the window. Someone working a late night.
A sudden breeze gusted past me as it sliced through the alleyway, shocking in the otherwise balmy night air. Pulling my coat closer around me, I could feel the welcome weight of the handgun in my pocket.
