by Kyle Prue
“Where am I?” he slurred. “What’s going on?”
“You’re waking up,” the Doctor explained. “You’re emerging from a drugged sleep. You might feel a little groggy. Perfectly normal.”
“I don’t know what you ruffians want,” he huffed, “but you will not receive it from me.”
The Doctor pulled a knife from the tool belt that encompassed his waist. “Jeffery Donovan,” he mumbled to himself. “You are the Imperial Judge of Abington, a proud father of four children, an upstanding member of the community…”
“All true.” Jeffery Donovan said. Somehow he puffed out his chest while hanging from a hook.
“And a spy for the rebellion,” the Doctor said, finishing his list.
The blood drained from Donovan’s face. “No…. No. You are confused. Your information is wrong.”
“My information has never been wrong before.”
The Doctor approached the other captive and poked him lightly with the knife. The man’s eye shot open and he yelped. “Logan Barrister,” the Doctor said, “you are a highwayman, a bachelor, one of the most sought after criminals in the land… and you’ve been targeting Imperial supply convoy’s for the rebellion.”
Logan stared at the Doctor with pure hatred. “I don’t know who you are, freak, but I can promise you that the Barrister gang is coming for you.”
The Hyena snickered. “No, they’re not.”
Anastasia tried not to think about what had happened to Logan’s men. They were probably the reason the Hyena wasn’t hungry enough to eat Logan. Anastasia didn’t know if the Hyena was even paid for his services. For all she knew, the Doctor was just enabling his cannibalistic adopted son.
“I don’t see the point in—“ Donovan started to say.
The Doctor sliced him with the knife. “Do not interrupt!” he demanded. Donovan howled. “Here’s the game. One of you is going to tell me where the Wolf has built the stronghold of his rebellion. The other will go into the cage.”
He pointed with the stub of a pointer finger on his right hand. They tried to turn their heads, but couldn’t. Built into the wall of the workshop was a series of iron bars. Anastasia didn’t know exactly what was behind them, but she knew that men who entered didn’t exit. Her personal theory was that the Doctor had a bear locked up behind the gate. She’d never been bold enough to check. “What’s in the cage?” Logan Barrister asked.
The Doctor said, “One of you is sure to find out. You have one minute, or you both go in. Lester, start counting.”
“You can’t expect us to be frightened of something we’ve never seen,” Donovan said.
The Doctor cocked his head. “Why of course I can. What could be more terrifying than the unknown?”
“Fifty seconds,” the Hyena said.
“You don’t know what’s in there. You don’t know how many times I’ve heard human bones crack in its mouth. Would it help to tell you that the beast eats its prey alive? Would it help to know what it sounds like?”
He threw a knife from his belt and it struck the metal gate. A deep inhuman roar came from within, and the hostages whimpered in fear. “Thirty-five seconds,” the Hyena said.
“Would it help to know how long it takes? Seconds, minutes, hours, or even days? Would it help to know if he plays with his food?”
“Twenty seconds.”
“Would it help to know that your death could be painless? All you’d have to do is point in the general direction of the Wolf.”
“Shipwreck Bay!” Donovan screamed before the Hyena could finish his countdown.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow in what was probably amusement. It was hard to tell with his face. “That was unexpected. The judge becomes the hangman. Very well.”
The Hyena scampered over to the cage and used a crank to open it slightly. Then the Doctor lowered Logan Barrister to the ground. He tried to struggle, but the Doctor struck him in the neck and deterred his efforts to escape. With alarming strength, he dragged Logan over to the gate and with a mighty heave he threw the young man into the cage. The Hyena lowered the gate before Logan could come to his senses and escape. Anastasia didn’t watch any further. She didn’t want to know what was going to happen to Logan Barrister. It was hard enough to listen to the screams.
The Doctor hobbled past her and over to a circular wooden table in the center of his workshop. He waved her over. She approached with some trepidation. There was a half completed bomb on the table. Or at least it looked like a bomb. He started fiddling with it. “How have your injuries been healing?” he asked a moment later.
She touched her stomach. “I’m good as new.”
He made a noise that could have been a laugh or simply his attempt at breathing, she couldn’t tell. “Good, very good. I have a new contract for you.”
“What kind of contract?”
“You remember the fugitives?”
Yes. “Fugitives?” she asked, feigning ignorance. She definitely didn’t want a contract involving them.
“The Lightborns who escaped,” he replied absently, tinkering with his bomb. “The ones General Carlin can’t find. I’ll pay you a hefty sum to go after them.”
Anastasia raised her eyebrows. “You want me to find the people who tried to kill me?”
“Is there a problem?”
“No,” she said, a hint of a frown playing at her lips. She narrowed her slanted eyes. “Not at all.”
“This job is a little different. There are specific instructions.”
“How many others have you already hired?”
“Two others,” he replied. His attention was still focused on the bomb in his hand, “Plus I put out a public notice to nearly every assassin in the land. Just for fun.”
“Two others,” she repeated. “The Marksman and the Hyena?”
“Correct,” he said, putting his experiment on the table and meeting her eye. “You’re all receiving the information at roughly the same time.”
She folded her arms. “Why do you need me then?”
“Consider it a race.” He glanced back over his shoulder to see how far along Logan Barrister was in the process of being dismembered and eaten. “The rules are simple. The Celerius girl isn’t worth anything unless she’s delivered to General Carlin, dead or alive. The Taurlum is fair game. I’d recommend killing him as quickly as possible. The eldest Vapros is not to be killed. The Emperor wants him alive for some reason.”
Anastasia pursed her lips. “I haven’t said yes yet.”
He waved his hand. “You will, you will. I would especially like the younger Vapros alive. For personal reasons.”
“You want the one who stabbed me? Why?”
“He’s quite the intellectual, I’ve heard,” the Imperial Doctor said. “I want to challenge him and test him for something.”
There was a roar from the other side of the workshop. The Doctor clicked his tongue. “It’s okay, my pet. Just enjoy your dinner.”
Anastasia shuddered. He noticed. He lifted his copper jaw into a grin. “It’s a thing of beauty. It’s art,” he said lovingly.
She tried to look convinced. “You want me to go after the fugitives? They’ve beaten me three times before. I don’t know if I’m up for it.”
He pulled his gaze away from his monster and examined her. “Do you know how all this,” he waved his misshaped hand over his body, “came to be?”
“Your injuries?”
He went to retrieve something from a nearby cabinet. “I was abducted from my home at a very early age. I was forced into the imprisonment of a mad doctor. He specialized in torture. And he made me his science experiment.”
Anastasia gulped, then regretted it. She didn’t like it when he knew that she was afraid. He pulled a small wooden box out of the cabinet, and she exhaled. It was her injection.
“He turned me into a monster,” the slurred voice continued evenly. “He broke my jawbones. He cut off my fingers. He studied my reactions carefully, recorded them in a little book. He
wanted to see what I would do, how I would feel. He was trying to create something called a pain index.”
Anastasia didn’t like the sound of something called a “pain index.” The Doctor often scribbled in a tiny book. She wondered if they were one and the same.
“Now, you must understand something, Anastasia.” The Doctor came closer and grabbed her arm. She didn’t flinch and was proud of herself for that. “I was strong as a child. Unusually strong. I am a Lightborn after all. If I had met this man under any other circumstances, I would have been able to kill him with my bare hands. But in our particular situation, he had the upper hand. He had dominance.” Anastasia could feel the Doctor’s breath on her face. He slipped the needle into her vein on the first try. “Of course, eventually, my strength won out. I broke free. I caught my doctor and strapped him down and used everything I had against him. He’d piqued my curiosity though… a pain index. How unique. I’m still completing mine to this very day. He begged me to kill him in the end. And so in that moment, I felt something incredible. Complete control. Complete dominance.”
He pushed the plunger on the end of the syringe, and she gripped the table. Finally. She felt her sickness subsiding already. “That feeling of control inspired me to become the man I am today. It made me the Doctor. I also made a promise to myself on the day that I killed him. I would never feel powerless again. I would exercise complete control in every aspect of my life. That includes my assassins and the contracts that they take on.” He pulled out the syringe and set it on the table. “Do you really think that I’d send you if I didn’t have absolute confidence in your abilities? Do you think I’d send my sons into danger?”
She was almost certain that he didn’t care about the lives of her or his sons, but she stayed silent. “I have faith in you, Anastasia. I know you won’t disappoint me.”
She still didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to accept this assignment. She’d have to stab quite a few backs to get it done. When she didn’t reply, his face turned sour. “I fixed you up, Anastasia.” Her name sounded harsh in his accent. “I made sure you lived. Do this for me, or I will make sure that gift does not last.”
She looked at him fiercely. He didn’t back down. “Then I suppose I have no choice,” she said in a low voice.
The Imperial Doctor smiled and went back to tinkering with his explosives. “The Marksman should get there first,” he said without looking at her. “I think he had a lead of some sort.”
Anastasia furrowed her brow and ran one thumb across her chain spike. “So do I,” she said as she turned to exit.
“And Anastasia!” the Doctor called. She eyed him suspiciously, “Just remember, if you turn on me, no more of your precious injections. You will rot from the inside out. Your entire body will turn on you and consume itself. I have studied pain my entire life. The way you will die if you betray me tops the scale.”
“Okay… I get it,” she said quietly, placing a hand on her stomach. She corrected her posture and exited with her head held high. As she entered the mineshaft elevator, she heard The Hyena calling to the Doctor. “I guess I’m going to Shipwreck Bay!”
He was probably going to try to find the Wolf and use him to find the fugitives. That way was too slow for her. She only had a month before… she didn’t want to think about it. She had a way to find the fugitives that was quicker. It had to be. She knew that her life would end at some point, but she’d finish her business before it did. Time would not be the one to strike her down.
Chapter Five
ALTRYON
THE PACK
The Marksman peered through the multitudes of swirling, intertwined couples toward the other side of the extravagant ballroom. A man and a woman stood by the bar, flirting and drifting subtly closer. The man sported a red coat and a seductive smile. She donned a puffy white dress and a feigned sense of security. The Marksman growled under his breath. Disgusting, he thought.
“You have a contract for me, correct?” the Marksman asked patiently staring off into the distance at the couple.
“How the hell did you know I was behind you?” Quintus asked.
The Marksman didn’t turn to face him. Instead, he looked down and admired the noble costume he had removed from a corpse that was probably yet to cool in the alley outside. “Do you know why the nobles dress so nicely?” he asked.
The Marksman clearly wasn’t going to turn, so Quintus walked around him, blocking the Marksman’s view of the courting couple. “Why?”
There wasn’t a spec of emotion in the Marksman’s eyes. “It’s because they can. Because they want people to know that there is a line that separates them from the poor. They want people to know that they are better than the masses.” He wrinkled his nose.
“The poor disgust you,” Quintus accused as he grabbed a wine glass from a travelling servant.
“No,” the Marksman said, “humans disgust me. All humans. Washed or otherwise.”
Quintus raised his eyebrows. “Okay. How did you know I was behind you?”
“I assume you acquired your wardrobe the same way I did?” Quintus shifted uncomfortably and the Marksman smirked. “I get it. A few months ago you could just go into your closet and pull out your nicest coat, right? That was before the Vapros burned down your house. Now things are different. You work for my father, the Doctor. Money is scarce. Is there a missing noble lying naked in a street somewhere?”
The Marksman expected Quintus to recoil or squirm, but he didn’t. He simply smiled. “I don’t need the Emperor or your father to provide for me anymore. I can provide for myself. As you can see.”
“I assume the shoes didn’t fit.”
Quintus looked down at his tattered boots and understanding dawned, “Oh.”
The Marksman looked smug, even with a stone-cold expression, “The soles are worn down. Your footsteps are audible yet they don’t have the same ring as shoes that are only brought out for extravagant parties.”
Quintus scowled, “Okay, zip-up Marksman, we’re done measuring.”
The Marksman smiled for the first time that night. “You asked.”
“Well, now I regret it,” Quintus said as his smile contorted into a sneer. “You just want people to marvel at your little ‘gifts.’ Same as all Lightborns.”
The Marksman’s eyes dropped from their faraway gaze and onto Quintus. The bookkeeper nearly swallowed his tongue. The Marksman cocked his head. “My gifts are not what make me superior to you, Quintus.”
Quintus puffed up his chest and tried to straighten his posture, even though the Marksman was a full head taller than him. “Care to repeat that? I’m not afraid to attack you, Victor. There’s one less noble in this city because of me.”
“It takes mere savagery to stab someone in an alley while their back is turned. I’m sure it made you feel like a man,” the Marksman said whilst examining his fingernails, voice thick with sarcasm.
“That’s it!” Quintus barked. “Working with you is the single worst part about my job! People used to respect me! I was an advisor to the emperor and I won’t be belittled by—“
The Marksman’s hand shot off in a blur and pressed into the side of Quintus’s neck, then slightly to the side of his shoulder. Quintus reached for his throat. “Settle,” the Marksman whispered. “Your body should be tightening and your airway should be constricting, provided I struck the right pressure points. Which I did. Your heart has stopped temporarily. You’re probably feeling very ill, so don’t attempt to speak.” He grabbed Quintus by the shoulders and dropped his body onto the table behind him. Quintus’s large rump crushed several plates of hors d'oeuvres. “Listen closely, simpleton,” the Marksman said, staring down his associate. “If you look far off to the other side of the ballroom, you’ll see a couple. The man is wearing red and the woman is wearing white. Don’t they look civilized, Quintus?”
Quintus tried to nod, but all he was able to manage was a low gurgle. The Marksman continued. “They look polished and well behaved. But o
ne of them is pretending. One of them is hunting.” A drop of drool fell from Quintus’s lip. “She thinks him to be a proper human, but the powder that he’s slipped into her drink suggests that his intentions are far less… civilized.” Quintus’s eye twitched. “I am superior to you people because I hunt efficiently and without deceit. I don’t lie. I don’t deny my instincts and I certainly do not befriend my prey before I kill them. You may stand in front of me and tell me that you’re a big strong killer, but I can assure you, coming from someone who appearss so…” he looked Quintus up and down, “stout and delicate… Well, it does no good.” He slowly released the pressure, and Quintus’ color improved as oxygen flooded back. Quintus moved his undamaged arm slowly to his chest pocket. He struggled to remove a letter. The Marksman pulled it out for him. “Is this the target?”
“Targets,” Quintus corrected through a shuddery breath. “You’ll have to leave the city. You should have the necessary papers for the Empire to let you through the wall.”
The Marksman pocketed the letter. “That’s fine. I’m headed out anyway. I’ve got two more men to kill first before I go after the fugitives.”
“Who?”
“I’ve been watching the man in the red coat for a reason. He’s worth quite a bit of coin. Dead.”
He cocked one of his guns under his coat. “Then I’ll head outside the wall to kill Sean Beaton. You should consider leaving the city as well, Quintus. As a member of the Pack, it’s best to stay on the move.” Out of the corner of his eye he could see the civilized couple beginning to leave the party. “Goodnight,” he said to Quintus, following the couple he’d been carefully tracking before they could leave the crowded ballroom. The girl in the white dress stumbled slightly and the man had his hand on her side and was sliding his palm downward. The Marksman wrapped his left hand around the pistol in his coat, “Sir!” he called.
The noble and the woman turned around, “Yes?” the noble asked skeptically as he examined the Marksman’s coat. He probably wanted out of the party as soon as possible.
