by Hugo Damas
“Hurts? How?” Eliza asked, confused. “I thought you were--”
“I know, I know what I am, I know nothing’s supposed to hurt, that’s the point!”
Eliza raised a perplexed eyebrow.
“I don’t know--” the opened entrance was freaking him out, so he spun around and flung the door shut.
He flinched at its slam, then turned back at her. “Sorry! I just…”
“You want privacy,” she said, setting the quiver down on the paper. The old woman’s wrinkles softened as she straightened up, apparently coming to terms with the fact that she had to deal with him immediately. “I understand. Relax and tell me what is going on, and how I can help.”
Her hair was long and voluptuous, arrayed behind her like a cape now that the hood was out. Most of the hair near the actual head was grayed, but it transitioned to the old blue the closer it got to the tips. She had kind eyes, eyes that were easy to fool, he knew, but he wasn’t interested in doing that. Not now.
“I got a ride from a merchant. This old lady, she’s got almost as many wrinkles as you do.”
Eliza frowned, and he twisted his face, grabbing at it in a small demonstration of the lack of control he was experiencing. “Sorry! Anyways, we were talking, I dunno how it happened, we talked the whole trip here.”
“How long was the trip?” Eliza asked.
“Three days, give or take.” Hugo shrugged. “I think, I dunno. Anyways, that crazy lady kissed me, that’s when it happened. I think she poisoned me, the hag!”
“She kissed you?” Eliza asked, a little shocked. “And you started hurting?”
“Yeah, inside!” Hugo pointed at the chest again, roundabout the left side, “this is freakin’…I’ve never been poisoned! Well, not since the one time, but I was a kid, I didn’t have a choice. Lady, you gotta help me. Do you have any idea what it could be?”
The Head Enchanter of the Magni faced him with a rather perplexed expression. “I have a thought.”
A considerable amount of relief washed over him. “Okay. Geez. That’s great! What is it?!”
“Have you ever…felt? For someone?” Eliza asked, cautiously.
“Felt? What? Like bad? No, not really. I’ve felt excited and fun, that’s why I’m the Circus Freak!” He wiggled his arms in the air, “I love what I do.”
Eliza frowned, thinking deeply. “But have you ehh…well, let’s see, you love what you do, but have you ever loved… a person?”
“What?” Hugo croaked, scowling. He wasn’t completely clueless about what she was alluding to, but that couldn’t be it. “No, of course, I haven’t. Look at me. I don’t go around looking or waiting to love or to be loved or…whatever! I’m here to have fun!”
Eliza smiled in a very sincere way, giving him the most sense of danger he had ever experienced. “Funny enough, I first fell in love because that’s what he did. He made it fun.”
That struck a nerve. Hugo had enjoyed talking to Minali. He looked down in thought.
It can’t be. Love’s like a…a book thing, something that’s in stories…like revenge. Like jealousy. Like suicide.
He knew people did those things in actual fact, but then, people were crazy. They had no identity of their own most of the times, and it drove them nuts! It led them to emulate behaviors that didn’t fit them, or take up different identities that didn’t really match. The Circus Freak didn’t do that, he knew who he was, and had known for a very long time.
Still, he didn’t want to shun the best chance he had to be healed. “Alright, fine, it’s a good guess, I guess? But can you like, scan me or something?”
Eliza chuckled. “It does not work like that. Plus, my power has waned over the years. I could maybe detect or even heal poisoning if it was something…explicit. But anything discreet needs specialized attention.”
Hugo nodded worriedly. “Okay, specialized attention. Where can I find that?”
Eliza smiled compassionately. “You cannot. Sorry but everyone who can do that is doing more important things.”
“Now lady,” Hugo called, moving towards her intently. He was half-surprised not to see her afraid. People usually reacted when he abruptly stepped towards them, but she didn’t. “I’m hurting here, it’s not something that stupid, I promise.”
“You have never loved, Hugo. And probably, you have never been loved,” Eliza said, compassionately.
“What’s your point?” He asked, desperately.
“You do not know how it feels. I do. Believe me, ‘love hurts’ is not poetic nor romantic. It is the bitter truth.”
His lips curved disapprovingly, finding a lack of words to give in response. He stepped back disappointed.
“Did you say old? She’s your elder?” Eliza asked
“I guess mother would be older,” he commented without thinking, his mind otherwise preoccupied. “Maybe.”
“Interesting. Men are usually not quick to fall in love with…well.” Eliza shrugged.
“I’m not usual, am I? In case you didn’t notice.” The Circus Freak sighed heavily, shaking his head. “It’s gotta be poisoning.”
“That is irrational, Hugo. You have feelings for the woman, that is it.” The Head Enchanter of the Magni picked up her quill again and looked down from him at the parchment. “If you are so against such feelings, simply cast her out of your mind, and allow time to do away with them.”
He grunted, very much displeased. He grabbed at his chest. It worried him very much that part of him didn’t want that to happen. Like it enjoyed the pain.
I can’t believe this is happening to me.
The Circus Freak was really in no mood for games. For messing around, for quipping and mocking. That had to be a first.
To me.
He left, but he was still annoyed by the time the meeting got underway. The Circus Freak wasn’t completely paying attention, but it seemed Griff and the Mad Genius hated each other for reasons nobody would explain, just like last time. The Hunter was apparently late because of an attempted attack by the LBA on her train.
The Shadow was there as well. It seemed like every time he saw her, she looked more like her namesake. This time, her uniform covered even more of her skin, and her hair no longer framed her head, it was tied into a very tight ponytail that went up and back for a few inches before draping down in an arc-like curtain of hair that reached down to her back. Her clothes were no longer red, but black. Not that he could tell through the mask, but she seemed to be in a bad mood.
None of that made her look any less appealing.
Hugo’s chest bulged. Ugh. It’s gotta be poison…right?
The Street Rat was there. The kid -- boy or girl, Hugo wasn’t yet sure -- seemed to be pretty proud of himself. Or herself. Themselves?
Argh, I can’t think like this.
“Hey, Street Trash,” the Circus Freak called.
The kid looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Street Rat.”
“Right right,” Hugo admonished, waving his hand impatiently. “I’m having a hard time thinking about you without knowing whether you’re you a boy or a girl. Which is it?”
They all looked at him with different levels of surprise.
“Use ‘it’,” the Street Rat told him without much hesitation, smiling with amusement. “That’ll work either way, right?”
“’S weird using that on people, though. No?” Hugo asked, genuinely curious.
The brat shrugged. “I don’t really care what you use, Circus Bummer. ‘s not my problem.”
The Circus Freak frowned. That was fair, the brat could get his name wrong, he didn’t care.
“Are we still waiting on the Hunter?” The Street Rat asked, skillfully putting an end to the conversation.
“Yes,” Griff stated. He looked to be in a terribly bad mood.
If eyes could shoot bullets, the Mad Genius would have been shot a thousand times over. Yet, the crazy engineer didn’t seem all that bothered by it, but rather amused.
The Don
wasn’t actually there, he was being phoned in through a land-line to a device that was a phone but not really. The cord was thick, sticking out from under the floor and connecting to the device. The speaker was loud rather than private. The sound quality was pretty bad. There was a constant static even when the Don wasn’t talking, and when he did, the sound of his voice echoed and changed pitches erratically. It was annoying. Hugo didn’t know how it could reach such a faraway distance in the first place, but then again, he really didn’t care to know.
Technology, magic, it was all the same to someone who didn’t care about how anything works.
“Can we maybe meet tomorrow, then?” The Don asked. “I’m sorta too busy to be layin’ around doin’ nothin’, see?”
“We could try meeting in a few hours from now,” Eliza suggested, sounding a bit awkward.
“The Hunter said her train already arrived, it’ll be a waste of time if we lost a day instead of a few minutes,” Griff pressed, annoyed that he had to explain it.
“It’s been thirty,” the Don argued, no less annoyed. “That’s not a few, see?”
He wasn’t in the room so he couldn’t know how tense the atmosphere was. Though knowing the Don, he wouldn’t care either way.
“We could start without her?” Eliza suggested. “It will be less of a waste to catch her up on--”
A figure at the entrance interrupted the Shadow Conclave leader. They all looked as the Hunter stopped, suddenly on the spot.
“…I apologize.”
She had acquired new bandages since the Circus Freak had last seen her. There was one around the leg that seemed to be covering a pretty big cut, and she also had a wound on her side that was well on its way to produce a pretty notable scar.
“Oh great, she’s there, finally!” The Don’s voice exasperated, “arright, I’ll start. Whole freakin’ country’s in my pocket. Told ya I had this handled.”
“Our information is that the Beasts will reach the western borders before the week is over,” Griff said.
The Don scoffed. “I know, why’d you think I’m annoyed at waitin’ around? I got a lot to prepare, see?”
“What do you mean?” Eliza was the one asking.
It didn’t surprise Hugo if she and Griff were the only ones moving the meeting along. The Hunter seemed to worship silence. The Shadow seemed to be fully giving Hunter’s religion a shot as a way to handle whatever grief she was wrestling with, which for some reason annoyed him. The Mad Genius as well as himself both seemed to have their thoughts otherwise preoccupied.
The Street Rat seemed to be the only one in a mood for chit chat.
“Just tell your president he’s gotta fight, lettim’ take care of it,” Griff said.
“Nah, it’s my people. It’s my place, see? I’ll take care of it. Besides, not like I’m really much use for anythin’ else now.”
“Actually. We could use you to convince the north-eastern gangs to engage the Beasts in combat,” Eliza pointed out.
“I’m already in talks with everyone I know, ‘m tryin’ to convince ‘em to join me here so we can take a proper stand. One that, ya know, doesn’t just roll over and die in a matter o’ hours, see?”
“Don, there is no way you can stop these things with ordinary--”
“Yeah yeah, weapons are useless. There’s a lot more a man can do in a fight than throw a punch and shoot a gun. Trust me, I’ll stop ‘em.”
“No, we’ll stop them,” Griff argued, “like we agreed.”
“All due respect there, Griff, I agreed so I’d have your support. I don’t need your support anymore, see? I’m handlin’ this now, you wanta go ahead and steal things, sure, that’ll help. But there’s not anythin’ else I can do far as that’s concerned. I wanna save my country here, and if that means savin’ everybody else, then sure, that’s what I’m gonna do. But long story short, I ain’t followin’ what you say just ‘cause you say it anymore, see?”
Griff frowned disgruntled, and Eliza seemed disappointed. Sad. Not that the Circus Freak cared, he only cared about the pain in his chest and his unwillingness to goof off and mock the whole situation. He wanted to be quiet, to adhere to Hunter’s religion of silence, and that was a really weird feeling that he truly hated.
“Fine,” Griff said, scratching his nose. “If you’re mobilizing the other criminal families around the continent, I guess that’s enough.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’,” the Don grunted.
Eliza took a breath and shrugged. “Circus Freak acquired the diary, and the Hunter retrieved the amulet. Anything else anyone wishes to report?”
Eliza glanced at the Circus Freak to either see if he would talk first or to encourage him to.
Did anything special happen? Yeah, Hugo was hurting for the second time in his life. Hurting like he’d never hurt before. He scowled and decided to say as little as he could.
“Those anarchist wannabes attacked, but what else is new? They were after the king’s diary, too.”
“Good job on retrieving it yourself, Circus Freak,” Eliza admonished.
Hugo shrugged. He was outside of the circle, leaning against the wall. Isolating himself.
“A beast was there,” the Hunter pointed out. “It arrived soon after I did. It was trying to crush the amulet, or retrieve it.”
They all seemed to notice her wounds then. Hugo had to admit, he was impressed, and it wasn’t that he hadn’t been through the same, but she could actually feel the wounds. Besides the light bandages set over the meat of her leg, and the gaping spot on her side that was scarring, there was also a wide wound still fresh, albeit dry, on her back. That would be another notable scar soon enough.
“You succeeded where anyone else would have failed,” Griff said, nodding respectfully. “Good job. Shadow, I want to hear from you, now.”
The Circus Freak had expected her to flinch, quickly attempting to steel herself to play a quiet scary part instead of the fidgety emotional girl he had seen and saved and appreciated.
She didn’t. Her mask looked back at the Shadow Conclave leader without a hint of nervousness. “You received the items I recovered. What else is there to say?”
Griff cleared his throat. “I would like a personal account of what you saw, and I’d like to know what has become of the Kagekawa.”
The Shadow stood in silence for a few moments, longer than it was normal, even for someone wanting to convince others that they were brooding. That meant it was for real. She really was brooding.
It pulled his focus, for some reason. He wanted to shake her and tell her to snap out of it. To see her fidgeting again, and nervously acting according to her whims and wants.
“I said all I will say about my clan,” the Shadow stated. “The city was in the same state as we saw Prusnia. Only there were the pillars in place and a lot more bodies. The air was much thicker. I am uncertain whether it was as thick as it can get.”
The Circus Freak snorted, calling upon looks at himself. He giggled, not really caring if it ruined the mood. It was like him to react as such, and it was honest, so he felt a little bit like himself because of it. That was hugely crucial to him.
“Gotta stay around longer to see how thick it can get, eh?” Hugo asked, smirking.
They all took a moment to catch on to his very childish joke, and then rolled their eyes in unison. The Mad Genius groaned, the Street Rat snickered, and the speakerphone flared to remind them that the Don was still listening.
“Who keeps invitin’ the clown?!”
The Shadow coughed once into a fist, regaining her composure, and then faced Griff as if to signal that she was done.
The Mad Genius shuffled, calling their attention.
“I would like to experiment with both the amulet and the items that the Shadow has retrieved. The next step will be to kidnap one of the Beasts themselves.”
“Before that, what news have you of your investigation, Falk?” Eliza asked, all while Griff was again gazing murderously at the engi
neer.
“I had a run-in with some acquaintances from Led by Anarchy, so I have officially parted with that organization. Burned whatever bridges there were.”
“Are we really going to trust whatever he says?” Griff asked.
Falk looked at Griff with an easy smile. “As to the organization I was asked to uncover, I’m afraid to admit I have failed. I know they’re in direct competition with the Shadow Conclave, and their goals seem to be more…practical and unimaginative. Rule the world and such nonsense.”
Griff shifted uneasily, but it was Eliza who responded.
“If that is the case, it is no wonder you could not uncover their identity. That is unfortunate, one more ally would have been good.”
“I’m not so sure they’re really allies thou’,” the brat said. They all looked at the brat, who was smirking deviously. “Interesting thing about my mission? Someone tried to kill the Holy Lady.”
Eliza visibly stirred. “Yes, we heard. It was LBS, correct?”
“No. They wanted the Chancellor to think it was them, but I actually found an accomplice.” Victoriously, the Street Rat produced a letter. “A high-profile countess. She was writing this letter.”
Eliza raised an eyebrow, but it appeared she was the only one who found that interesting. The Hunter and Griff didn’t seem to care and the Shadow? Who knew what she was thinking.
Falk, however, chuckled. He called attention to himself with that, and the first thing to react was Griff’s gaze, duly inflamed.
“Oh, we have proof from a third-party. In that case, never mind, I did uncover the identity of our enemies, they’re the Tech Guild.”
What?! Everyone froze. Even the Circus Freak shifted his stance somewhat. But…aren’t we in the Tech Guild?
“Shocking, I know,” Falk said, with a tone that seemed to imply it wasn’t shocking at all. “Griff was there waiting for me. He captured and intended to kill me, which would be why he’s been trying to melt me with his stare since I got here.”
Eliza looked to the side at Griff who reacted by banging the floor with his cane.
In response, the room lit up completely. The ceiling was a collection of transparent panels with very potent light bulbs behind them. The room was completely robbed of shadow and, at the same time, blinded everyone there.
