Red Litten World

by Alexander, K. M.

  “Hmm,” she said absently.

  “What?” My heart had started to pound. It was hard to read her. It was all I could do to try and look apathetic as I slouched in my chair.

  “Let me check some older records first, one second.” She pulled another binder from a drawer beneath one of the other desks and flipped through it, shaking her head. She grunted and then checked another, then another, finally finishing at the last desk. She turned and leaned against it, looking at me. Well, not at me directly—more like through me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Argentum isn’t in any directories. We have never collected on an Argentum and we have never had a collector named Argentum.”

  “What?” My voice wavered.

  “Let’s look at the contract. What’s your full name?”

  “Waldo Emerson Bell,” I said.

  “Gotcha.” She returned to her chair and began to flip through her binder again and then a second time. She huffed and frowned, lines forming along her cheeks. It was clear she wasn’t finding anything.

  “You’re not pulling a fast one on me, are you?” she asked with a chuckle.

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, let me send a quick message.”

  She rolled her chair to the teleprinter next to the counter. It was the size of a sofa. There she hammered out a quick message on its keys and waited, noisily slurping her tea.

  I had all but forgotten mine, lost in the search for the contract. Could I be free from the Society? But then who was Argentum? And what the hell did he want with me?

  After a few minutes the machine chittered and a message printed out. Patrice read it.

  “Well?” I asked.

  She slowly turned to look at me. Her gray eyes were wide, her mouth was turned up at the corners. A mocking smile? I couldn’t tell.

  “Argentum isn’t in anyone’s records,” she said calmly. “Neither is your contract. You’re not under contract with the Society, Wal.”

  I blinked.

  “Do you understand? You’re not in here. You don’t owe us anything.”

  There was a heavy bang.

  Patrice jumped and then laughed. I looked around, and then down. It was me. I’d dropped the mug, spilling tea all over the carpet of the chapterhouse.

  I was confused. I was stunned. I tried to talk but just stammered a bit before I closed my mouth.

  Patrice smiled what I now understood to be a warm smile. For a moment I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Then almost as soon as it left, another took its place. Something larger. Heavier. The rules had now changed. I was in a more dangerous position than I had been before. Coming here had only worsened my situation. My hunch had been right. Argentum wasn’t a collector, he was an assassin.

  Patrice patted my shoulder and got up to get a cloth.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said over her shoulder. “Happens all the time. Bet you’re feeling relieved, huh?”

  SIXTEEN

  LOVAT’S SMELL HAD CHANGED. The sharp scent of gunpowder and the acrid smell of smoke hung heavy in the air. Hints of smoke wafted in the spaces between the buildings and clung to my clothes. The city was fuming and so was I. A hot anger had flared up inside of me. Argentum. He had lied. He had threatened. He had pushed me around. For what? Twenty-five thousand lira? The bastard. I would kill him. I would tear his mask off and leave him bleeding in a gutter.

  The Society clerk had been alarmed when I explained my story. She put out an alert for him. I doubted it would help. But maybe Argentum was on the run now, maybe he was experiencing a little of what he had put me through. The thought made me smile.

  The smoke in the air masked the smell of the garbage that had begun to collect on the curbs. Trash cluttered the corners and gathered in the nooks and crannies of alleys. On the lower levels, Two and Three, that sort of buildup wasn’t uncommon, but on the upper levels it was strange to see. Crews of sanitation workers usually loaded carts full of trash to drag off to the massive landfill south of the city. Where were they now?

  It took me almost three hours to get back to King Station and Saint Olmstead. More riots had broken out over the city. I witnessed a group of Breakers and a pair of police officers go at it in front of a barber shop. Clubs and knives in hand. In another location, cops faced an angry mob demanding food in a small market square. Elsewhere I saw people smash windows and grab what they could, running off down the street.

  Most of the city was on lockdown. Barricades had been stretched across roads, guarded by officers with clubs. They blocked the major routes through areas where a riot had taken place. Rickshaws festooned with loudspeakers belted out warnings to empty streets, to the Lovatines who stayed behind closed doors.

  One declared, “Any individual wearing a red armband will be arrested on sight and tried for the instigation of riots.”

  Another thundered, “Groups of six or more wishing to move together in public must now register at the nearest precinct office. Failure to comply will result in arrest.”

  Normally crowded, Lovat now felt abandoned. People moved around one another nervously. Rushing from street to street and doorway to doorway. No lingering. No talk. Where had the poor gone? The buskers, the beggars, the addicts?

  My breath came out in clouds. I half-imagined myself as some angry bull ox pulling at his harness. I was itching for a fight. Every time I saw someone peer through a window I expected to see the glint of Argentum’s silver mask. A slammed door, a sudden shout, the wail of a siren, the clamor of a loudspeaker—everything made me jump. Ready to spring.

  Instead, I kept to myself. Head down, collar turned up, I burrowed south through the cold. I climbed stairs, descended lifts, and walked down alleyways. I slipped past blockades and closed streets as best I could.

  Eventually, I found myself in front of Hagen’s door. The lights inside were dim but the door was unlocked. I pushed through with a grunt, glad to feel the warm air on the other side. My anger had subsided. Turning from red fire into seething coals in my belly. I’d have my time. I’d face him again. This time, I’d be ready. I shook my coat and inhaled deeply. The air was fragrant with incense, candle wax, and old wood. Saint Olm had begun to feel a lot like home.

  “Wal?” called a voice from behind the shelves.

  I navigated the twists and eventually found the counter, a very wide-eyed Samantha standing behind it.

  “Thank God!” she yelled and ran around the desk, throwing her arms around my neck. I grunted as she collided into me. “You had us so worried!”

  “Easy, easy,” I said. “I’m not at a hundred percent.”

  She released me and stepped back, her eyes narrowing instantly. “What happened?”

  I looked around. “Where’s Hagen and Hannah?”

  “They’re out looking for you. We’ve all been looking! Ever since you disappeared. What happened?”

  “Didn’t you get my telegraph?”

  “No?” Samantha moved around to the other side of the counter and shifted through some papers. “There’s nothing here.”

  “I sent one, I swear. I got held up. Then all hell broke loose out there. A massacre. Is there anything to drink? I could use a drink.” I moved around the counter to the small space at the rear of the shop. I began poking through the crowded spaces behind the counter, looking for a bottle, any bottle. The tension that had welled up inside me was drifting away. I felt more relaxed, especially next to Samantha.

  She watched me for a moment and finally said, “I haven’t found anything, Wal. We’ve been having enough trouble finding food. What happened? What’s this about a massacre? Are you talking about the Cannery Massacre?”

  “Ah, they gave it a name,” I said and nodded.

  “It’s all over the monochromes. Nine dead, including one officer. The city’s on lockdown. The mayor is promising swift action, the Blockade Breakers are being called instigators. It’s ugly.”

  “Yeah, they have sound carts all over the city wailing a
bout it. Arrested on sight and all that.”

  “They’ve already tried a few of the Breakers. The mayor is saying he’ll seek immediate execution.”

  “What?” The last comment shook me. “Can they do that?”

  Samantha shrugged. I slumped into a wooden chair. Worry reared its ugly face. Wensem had sided with the Breakers. He was helping them at the Purity Movement’s blockade in the south. If the LPD was arresting, trying, and executing people... Firsts. I hoped he was okay.

  Samantha squatted in front of me and reached out to squeeze one of my hands. She read my thoughts. “There’s a big difference between the Blockade Breakers here and the group in Destiny. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  I looked at her, her dark eyes met mine and she gave me a little smile.

  “I hope so,” I said and grew silent.

  “Okay,” she said. “Fill me in. Where have you been? What happened to you? Why were you in Demetrios?”

  I took a deep breath. It was time to fess up. I had been keeping secrets, secrets I should never have kept.

  “Uh, so... yesterday...” Was it yesterday? Everything had become a blur. “I went on that food run. I was planning on stopping in on a Society chapterhouse.”

  “A chapterhouse? Why?” Her expression hardened. Subtle lines formed around her mouth and her eyes. The fire that normally flashed in her gaze intensified. Guilt weighed me down. My silence had been what caused trouble between us before. I should never have kept my trouble with Argentum a secret. They had a right to know.

  She rubbed her eyes. “What are you involved in now? Wait... when you said you weren’t a hundred precent...”

  Her eyes narrowed. She studied me, looking for something. I gave an embarrassed chuckle and pulled off my coat, lowered my suspenders, unbuttoned my shirt, and slowly peeled off my new undershirt, exposing my chest and the bandage below.

  Samantha gasped and brought her hand up to her mouth. The spurs along her knuckles cast jagged shadows on the back of her hand. The action with the massacre hadn’t been kind to my cut. Spots of red had begun to leak through. I would need to change the bandage.

  “Did they do this? Did your contract come due? Ugh!” she said with a distressed groan. “Why is it whenever you go traipsing off by yourself you come back banged up?”

  I looked down and poked the bandage. “I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal and I wouldn’t have to involve you guys.”

  “You always say stupid shit like that.” She let out an exasperated sigh and looked at the bandage. “We need to change that.”

  Samantha moved to the back of the office and returned in moments with a first-aid kit. She began removing the old bandage and gasped when it had come off completely.

  “This is ugly.”

  “Knife,” I said. “A nasty one.”

  She sighed, then looked up at me. A strand of dark hair had fallen across her face, but I could see the concern in her eyes.

  “Who stitched you up?” she asked, her voice tender now.

  “Not really sure,” I said. “Best guess, a bok named Hank.”

  “A bok? Well, you’ve already torn some of the stitching.”

  “Yeah, I figured. I was fighting to get out of the crowd when the bullets started flying. Things got a little, er... hectic after that.”

  “Wal,” she said softly. “If you’re wanted by the Society they’ll come here, they’ll find you and drag you off. Legally we can’t do anything, even...” She paused, the words catching for a moment. “...even if we wanted to.”

  “I’m not wanted by the Society,” I said.

  She gave me a puzzled expression, but before I could explain further the shop’s bell tinkled. I heard an exasperated huff followed by a draft of cold air. Once again, naked from the waist up, I shivered.

  “Ugh, not only is it as cold as a First’s heart out there but everyone’s going crazy,” I heard Hannah say as she moved through the shelves. “I saw two cops fight with protesters. A riot outside the market on Horton. A few places on fire in Pergola Square. Nothing on Wal, though, I couldn’t find him, checked Cedric’s, checked his haunts down by the Sunk. Nothing! Any luck on your—”

  Samantha smiled up at me and shook her head again, and dabbed some foul-smelling ointment over the gash. “He’s here,” she called out, her eyes locked onto mine. I looked away a little sheepishly and was relieved to see Hannah appear around a shelf of statuary. She was out of the fancy dress I had seen her in the day before and had returned to her roader attire: denim, boots, and dark flannel. Over top of it all she wore a thick leather coat, a red keff wrapped around her neck, and a knit cap down over her ears.

  I stretched my neck so my head appeared over the counter and gave her a pitiful little wave just as Samantha began repairing some of the stitches with catgut from the first-aid kit.

  “Carter’s bloody cross!" Hannah spat, her voice raised with heavy levels of irritation. She came around the counter. Samantha finished stitching me up and began to apply fresh bandages. “We’ve been crawling all over the span! Where the hell did you go? What happened?”

  “I sent a telegram,” I said.

  “One that never came,” Samantha said.

  Hannah frowned, then walked over and socked me in the left shoulder.

  “Easy,” I said with a grunt. It was hard not to smile. “I’m wounded.” I pointed down at the bandage.

  “Wal was just telling me how the last few days have been typical for him. He somehow found himself in the center of the Cannery Massacre, and he has a collector on his ass.”

  “He’s not a collector,” I said.

  Hannah’s eyes widened. “What the shit! Boss? A contract? And you never told us?”

  “I just—” I began, but my words disappeared in a yelp as Samantha pulled the bandage tight, squeezing my chest. Her eyes flashed beneath her dark eyelashes, a smile at the corner of her lips.

  “And you were at the massacre!” Hannah punched me a second time, same spot. I grunted again.

  “You know, usually I only get knocked around by people other than my friends.”

  She punched me a third time for good measure.

  “So?” She took off her coat and pulled herself up onto the counter, her legs dangling. My bandaging finished, Samantha rose and stood next to her, leaning back against the old wood. My stomach took the opportunity to grumble loudly. I smiled, slightly embarrassed.

  “So... after we met Kiver I was approached by this dauger who claimed he was a collector. Fancy fella, silver mask, says his name’s Argentum. Said he was hired to kill me.”

  Hannah whistled. “Who hired him? Did he say?”

  A lump formed in my throat and I swallowed it down. I had been dreading this moment. Both Samantha and Hannah had been there on the Broken Road. They had seen Shaler and Tin dead, hanging in that forest of bodies around Methow. I knew when I spoke the name it would dredge up terrible memories for them as it did for me.

  “William Shaler.”

  Hannah’s expression dropped and she instinctively moved to cover her false hand with her real one. Samantha’s eyes grew wide and I could hear her breathing change, it grew shallow and rapid.

  “Yeah,” I said. I paused for a moment before I continued. “He claimed I owed twenty-five thousand lira for the death of Margaret Shaler. Said I was responsible.”

  “And you believed him?” Samantha said.

  “He knew a lot about what happened out there... Stuff we kept out of the papers. Anyway, once Kiver had paid us I figured I’d go to a chapterhouse, see if I couldn’t get on a payment plan and get him off my back. I was going to do that when I stepped out to find food yesterday but Argentum was on the lift. When I told him where I was going he pulled a knife, came at me.”

  “That’s not how collectors operate,” said Hannah.

  “No kidding,” I said. “He gave me this.” I pointed to the fresh bandage. “I managed to get away. Later, I decided to check out another chapterhouse and ended up in Demetrios.
Which is how I ended up in the middle of the massacre at the cannery. But here’s the kicker. I’m not actually under contract. Argentum isn’t a collector at all. It’s just a cover or something.”

  “So what is he?” asked Samantha.

  “Opportunist?” suggested Hannah. “Maybe he thought he could squeeze Wal for money.”

  I stood and twisted, feeling my spine crack. Then I began to dress. I struggled with my undershirt until Samantha took pity on me and moved to help.

  “Thanks,” I said as the shirt came over my head and around my chest. “I mulled it over on my way back here. It’s a good racket, no one is more willing to pony over stacks of lira than someone with a blood debt. He knows too much to be working alone, though.”

  “What’s his full name?”

  “Rulon, Rulon Argentum. Though it could be a pseudonym.”

  “The Argentums are one of the five precious families,” Samantha said, holding my shirt out so I could slip it on.

  Dauger society goes well beyond their ever-present masks. Each member belongs to a house named after a metal. The five precious families wear masks of precious metals. The Inox wear steel. Brass wear brass, Nickels wear nickel. Iron, iron. And so on. Just like the elements from whence they take their names they are divided into three castes: base, noble, and precious. The upper echelons are rarer and led by families like the Golds, the Platinas, and the Argentums of the South Wold. Wherever the South Wold is. Maybe Rulon Argentum knows.

  “So he claims,” I said. Maybe it was all an act. Some way for a base dauger to make a lot more money. Could dauger swap masks? I wasn’t sure.

  “Well, a member of a precious family wouldn’t need money,” said Hannah. “Especially the Argentums.”

  “Yeah, that’s another weird one,” I said. I finished buttoning up my shirt. “So, I ended up getting plucked out of the Sunk by a bok. A guy named Hank.”

  “The Sunk?” Hannah and Samantha both said in unison.