by Norris Black
"The four of us..." I glanced down at the doorman still rolling around in pain. "The three of us are going inside, and you are going to take us to your boss."
"He'll kill me if I do," said the second doorman.
"He might. But I most certainly will you if you don't," I said, thumbing back the second hammer.
"Fair point."
None of the kids standing in line seemed inclined to involve themselves with a pair of clearly crazy people storming the nightclub of a dangerous crime lord all by themselves. Definitely smarter than they looked.
The club was packed wall to wall with scantily clad drunk people flailing around to the pulsing music in what I can only assume was what passed for dance these days.
I put the Boxer back in the side holster hidden under my jacket as we followed the doorman through the crowd. Squeezing a round off in such tight quarters was almost guaranteed to cause some collateral damage, and no one deserved to catch a bullet just for dancing badly. I just had to hope Rowe's henchman wasn't going to try anything stupid.
"Do you mind letting me in on the plan?" said Dagda in my ear, doing her best to be heard over the tumult.
"Plan? Who said I had a plan? Honestly, I'm surprised we got this far." Not entirely true but the shocked expression on her face was worth it.
A set of stairs at the far end of the room led up to an office with a set of expansive windows overlooking the floor below. The glass had been darkened to obscure anyone on the other side. Standing at the top of the stairs was a familiar mountain of muscle and scar tissue. He just smiled as he recognized me before motioning to our reluctant, and now relieved, guide to leave us.
We stared at each other for a long minute.
"Who's this?" Dagda leaned over to speak into my ear she wouldn’t be overheard.
"Todd."
"Just Todd? That's it? Seems, I don't know, a little underwhelming."
"I know, I was disappointed too." I raised my voice, speaking to all of six feet of ugly standing before me. "We need to speak to Rowe."
Todd stepped to the side, making a sweeping gesture with one hand.
Those words did nothing for my current comfort levels, but there was no turning back now.
Rowe sat behind a long, black-painted steel desk with a tinted glass top. The surface of the desk was completely bare, like it was a prop instead of used for any of the normal practical purposes one would use a desk for. The rest of the office was furnished sparely, with a black leather couch along the wall opposite and a pair of steel cabinets along another wall. At Rowe's shoulder stood Dancer in his sleeveless leather tunic and long braids. I noted the holster on his hip carried a replacement for the gun he had lost in the Underground. A livid burn mark covered the right side of his face and extended down onto his bare arm. I guess it was too much to hope he had perished in the fire.
Rowe leaned back in his black leather chair as he saw me come through the door. His strange eyes were unreadable, but a smile more at home on a wolf than a man spread across his face. The smile disappeared the moment he saw who was with me
"You!" Dagda exclaimed. She was staring at Murder Rowe, eyes wide in shock.
"Cadet Fray," he said in cool acknowledgment, the raspiness of his voice making me involuntarily clear my own throat. He turned his attention to me. "Why Gideon, you seem to be traveling with rarefied company these days. How unexpected."
"It's Swordbearer Fray." The last time I heard such heat in the Seraph’s words I was being accused of summoning monsters to kill her comrades. What the hell did Rowe do?
He raised an eyebrow at her, the crow tattoo on the side of his face stretching like it was ready to take flight. "Already? Impressive. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, you were one of my best students after all. A chip off the old block. Speaking of old block, how is the old man?"
"You can tell him yourself. I'm certain he'll want to pay you a visit personally once he hears what you've been up to."
"Um... does someone want to fill me in here?" I had been watching the back and forth between Dagda and Rowe with growing confusion.
Dagda didn't take her eyes off Rowe as she answered me. "Is this the person you've been calling Murder Rowe?"
I simply nodded.
"This person is known in the halls of the Seraph as Magos the Scabbard. At least he was. He's been dead for more than a year now."
"And you're sure of this?"
"Absolutely. I've known him since I was a little girl. He's the one who first taught me to hold a blade."
A lot of things clicked into place, including how Rowe had been able to rise to power in such a short time. I'd lay odds he still maintained more than one contact among his former colleagues.
"Well, that was a complication I wasn't expecting, but I don't see how it changes much," I said as I thrust my hands into my coat pockets and did my best to act nonchalant. "Now, you're going to tell me why you decided to have a bathrobe party outside of my apartment. A party where you burned some poor schmuck alive in order to drag forth some big bad evil that, incidentally, has been trying to murder me at every opportunity since."
"And if I don't?"
"If you don't, I pull the pin on this grenade I'm holding and you, me and most of this end of the building go bye-bye. Real loud and violent like." I pulled the ugly green object from my pocket to show I wasn't bluffing. Gods bless that crazy baker.
Dancer reached for the pistol on his hip but an upraised hand from Rowe forestalled him.
"I assure you Mr. Brown, there is absolutely no need for these theatrics. I will gladly tell you everything I know. In fact, I've had men searching for you for that very purpose."
"Why exactly would you want to do that?"
"Because this 'big bad evil' as you call it, wants to kill every last one of us, and soon enough it'll have the means to do so. That is of course, if someone doesn't stop it first."
"That someone being me, I take it," I said. "Why me? You're the man with all the manpower and guns. Or if you didn't want to do it yourself you could always sic the Seraph on them. This seems like their kind of rodeo after all."
"That's going to require quite a bit of explaining. Please sit," he said, gesturing to the leather couch. I held the grenade up for everyone to see as I walked over to the couch and sat down. Dagda stayed by the door. She had been shooting daggers at Rowe the entire time and even my little grenade reveal hadn't fazed her.
"To start, you'll need to understand why I left the ranks of the Seraph to become the mysterious Murder Rowe."
Dagda snorted. "This should be good," she said.
"You have to realize, I had served the Seraph loyally for more than thirty years. I believed in the mission, to protect the people of this city, both from the Twists in the Battery and from each other." He was looking at me when he spoke, but I got the impression he was directing the words at the angry Dagda.
"When did that change?" I asked.
"There wasn't one event, one great epiphany. It was gradual. It began with a tiny worm of doubt. Each time we killed someone who only may have been guilty, that worm fed and grew a little larger. Every time some poor bystander lost their life simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, it grew a little more. When I looked into the eyes of a child as we drug their parents off to the jails, leaving them to the mercies of the street, that worm feasted. Before long there was nothing but the worm. Oh, we justified those actions as serving the greater good. The truth is though, the only good the Seraph serves is their own power. They're no better than any other petty Wardlord. I would argue they’re worse than most because they actually believe what they're doing is right. There’s nothing so dangerous as a true believer." His troubled gaze found Dagda. "I know what you must think of me, but I couldn't live the lie anymore."
Dagda’s angry glare was undimmed by his words.
"Any chance of you finding a point anytime soon, or is this just some kind of impromptu reading of your autobiography?" I asked.
He ignored
the question. "With the help of some old friends I arranged to have a body found butchered in an alley. The head had been removed, but he was wearing the uniform and sword of Magos the Scabbard. A few weeks later Murder Rowe was born."
"And you nailing old Mad Markus to the door of a Seraph's office? Was that your idea of two-weeks-notice?"
"I needed to make a name for myself. As for Markus, if you knew half the things that bastard did to people, to children, you would've held the hammer for me."
"So, the freaky eyes and the face tattoos...?"
"Most people don't see past them, and I needed to leave my old identity dead and buried."
"You'll have to explain to me how leaving the Seraph to become a murderous criminal is somehow the end of a redemption arc."
"You know what it's like out there. Between the Seraph and the Wardlords this entire city is a meat grinder, but the people who live under my wing? I shelter them, I protect them, I keep the peace."
It was my turn to snort. "Sounds like you're still a believer in the 'greater good', you just swapped out the Seraph for yourself in that equation. How noble."
"I don't really expect someone like you to understand. Yes, I know all about you Mr. Brown. You've spent your entire life looking out for no one but yourself. I suppose I can't really blame you, the one time you did stick your neck out, people died."
"You're going to want to be very careful with the next words you say to me." The anxiety churning inside of me since I first entered the Crowe's Nest vanished, burned away by the hot flames of anger. Anger and guilt.
Rowe caught my change in demeanor and raised both gloved hands in mock surrender. "Don't get me wrong. Lensky was a mad dog. If you hadn't put him down I surely would've. Especially after what he did to that poor woman and child."
Dagda let off her glaring at Rowe to look at me, unasked questions in her eyes. I kept my attention on Rowe.
"You motherfucker." I was seething, it was taking all I could not to pull out the Boxer and put both slugs through that tattooed face. "You do not get to speak of them to me. Ever." I tried to calm my breathing, it felt like I had been running a marathon. "You are going to tell me what any of your bullshit origin story has to do with me, or I swear to the Fallen I will kill you and that murder-faced sonofabitch standing behind you." Dancer just scowled at me, unbothered by my threat. At that moment I meant every word.
"I appreciate you bearing with me on this. Where was I? Ah yes, even with my rise to Wardlord I didn't have the resources needed to topple the Seraph. There were too many, and they were too entrenched. I needed something to tip the balance, something outside the existing power structure. My research led me to the wyrd. The power contained in that place is unimaginable, the most powerful wych is accessing the barest fraction of it. The ritual was supposed to bore a hole into the wyrd, allowing access to enough power to topple the Seraph."
"But that's not what happened was it?" asked Dagda, perhaps sensing I hadn't yet returned to a position of rational discourse.
Rowe turned his attention to her. "No. I don't know what we breached, but it wasn't the wyrd. I've been trying to piece it together ever since. The way it's been described to me is, picture the wyrd as layers in a cake, and where we sit is on the crust of that cake. The ritual was supposed to dig a hole in that crust to the wyrd beneath."
"And instead?"
"Instead it burrowed a hole straight through the cake and into something below it no one knew even existed."
"Hells," swore Dagda softly.
"One of them at least. Wherever it was, something came through and got into one of the disciples. It spread like a fire in dry grass. My men managed to spirit me away, most were not so lucky."
My temper was back under control enough to ask the question I most needed an answer to. "I still don't know what this has to do with me. Why did you write my name on the wall?"
"I didn't do that. It did. The first I had ever heard or seen your name was when it showed up in bloody letters on the wall of the Underground later that night."
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
"This ritual you performed, where did you learn it, and why that alleyway?" asked Dagda.
"Both came to me in a dream. A dream so real I knew it to be true," Rowe said, a faraway expression on his face. "I need you to both understand, I'm sorry for what's happened, but I had the best of intentions."
"I'm sure that's cold comfort to that poor bugger you lit on fire."
"Sacrifices had to be made."
"Let me guess, for the greater good, right? If it's one thing I've noticed, it's when people like you start talking about sacrifices, they're almost always referring to people other than themselves. Alright Dagda, I think we're done here."
As I got to my feet, I noted a change to the music that had been pulsing in the background the entire time we had been in Rowe's office.
The former Seraph stood as Dancer swung around to stare out the pair of windows overlooking the dance floor.
New sounds mixed in with the pounding beats. The sounds of screams, and gunshots.
Chapter 21
Chaos reigned on the dance floor. Dark figures poured in from the street and hit the unsuspecting dancers in an avalanche of gnashing teeth and flashing steel. The crowd reacted like it was a living thing, recoiling as one from the cause its sudden pain. But there was nowhere for the massed revelers to go. Pressed up against the far wall they could do nothing but cry out as they died.
It was difficult to make out more than shapes in the strobing nightclub lights, but whoever the attackers were, they were big, and they were brutish. Here and there muzzle flashes lit up the darkness as Rowe's men responded to the threat. It didn't appear these counterattacks were having much of an effect.
Somewhere, someone must have hit a few switches because both music and strobe lights cut out and the overhead lights came on. I could see the attackers more clearly now and I almost wished I couldn't.
"Sweet Seraph," whispered Dagda, who had joined us at the window.
Seraph indeed. Now I knew what had happened to Apoch's missing soldiers.
Much like the urchins we had encountered at Brickstone Block, these monstrosities were far from what they had started out as. Pristine white uniforms were now painted crimson and it was impossible to tell how much of that red was the blood of their victims and how much of it was their own. We watched the carnage, helpless to do anything about it. There was no going into that woodchipper and coming out intact. A new figure stepped through the club's entranceway, slight in build and wrapped in a ragged, black cloak.
"Raggedy Ralph," I said, pointing him out to Dagda.
"Raggedy?" Rowe's question was asked in a distracted voice as another of his men was torn apart by the mob. "Yes, I suppose that fits."
The temptation to shoot Dagda a triumphant look was strong, but there more important matters in front of us right now, the largest being how not to die in the next five minutes. I squirreled the 'I told you so' away for another time, assuming of course there was going to be another time.
We all swung around as the door opened, relaxing slightly when we saw it was Todd, eyes a little wild. Can't say I blamed him. I wouldn't want to stay out there either. Not that we were in much better position, trapped in this metal box as we were.
The melee below us ended as abruptly as it had started. Turns out a few hundred partiers are not much of a match for an equal number of freakishly brutish soldiers who also happened to be possessed by some maniacal otherworldly entity. Rowe's dozen or so armed goons had made a better account of themselves, taking several of the former Seraph down before they too were ripped apart.
The hulking brutes below had completed their macabre work and now stood in a red-streaked thicket among the bloody remains.
There was movement below and the mutilated former Seraph shuffled out of the way to open a lane for Ralph as he came to the forefront to stare up at us. Though I knew the window was completely opaque when loo
king from the outside I swear he was staring directly at me.
"Gideon Brown! I know you're here! You can't hide from me!" said Ralph in that horrid voice. The side of his face was still a ruin where Hassil had caught him with the shotgun blast.
"So, he's possessed by... what was its name again?" I asked.
"Baranabus," supplied Dagda.
"That's not a real name," said Rowe, his attention still fixed on the scene below. "Just something for the cult members to focus on. I think Todd came up with it."
"I don't suppose you have a back way out of here?" There was no way we were going out the same way we came in. At least not in one piece.
"Of course, I do," came Rowe's response. "What kind of criminal overlord would I be if I didn't have a secret escape route from my lair?"
"Wait, are you serious?" I didn't expect there to actually be another way out, the question had been meant as a joke. A little gallows humor before said gallows rushed up the stairs and stabbed me to death.
"This would be an inappropriate time for jokes. Todd?"
The heavily muscled man nodded at Rowe and walked over to one of the cabinets along the back wall. There was a click and Todd swung the cabinet out on oiled and hidden hinges to reveal a doorway with steps leading down into darkness.
My heart jumped a little as the despair I had been feeling was swept away with a newly kindled hope. "We need to get out of here, and now. It won't be long before Ralph gets tired of this little cat and mouse game he's playing and comes up here to dig us out of our hole."
Rowe was still lost in thought. Finally, he nodded as if he had come to a decision. He turned to meet my eyes with his mismatched ones. "I don't know why this thing wants you, but whatever the reason, I think it's in the best interest of everyone that it doesn't get what it wants. What's important here is you escape so you can find a way to stop it."
I was already at the hidden door, waving Dagda over to join me. "I don't know what I'm expected to do to stop it, but I am all aboard the 'getting the hell out of here' train. Let's go already."
Rowe walked over to the other cabinet and removed a sword with an elaborate hilt with matching belt and scabbard which he proceeded to buckle on. "Todd will take you and Dagda out the secret passage. I'm afraid if we all go, our raggedy friend will catch us before we make it out of the tunnels. No. Mr. Dancer and I will delay them as long as we can so you can make your getaway."
