Blood & Baltazar

by Liam Inscoe-Jones

  “But there’s no way to fix that!”

  “Yes there is.”

  “How?”

  “You go back to the way you were.” He nodded confidently.

  “I’m not sure I can. You’ve seen me now, I’m not just a woman anymore, I’ve hardened, I’ve learnt to live like this, like a criminal.” Josephine sighed sadly. “You know I used to be afraid to fetch the ball from the neighbour’s garden? I got angry when my little brother got into fights at school because I hated all that stuff, I did. Then mother died and the people I spoke to about things, normal everyday things like coffee and magazines, I couldn’t anymore because I’d suffered this intolerable, unjust thing and every second of every day I was just trying to understand why it had happened. Then I heard about Cedric Baltazar and in that moment I knew exactly why. At last I had something I could talk about and people I could talk to because Elisa and George and Edgar understood. No matter who they may be - the people who lost someone that night are the closest thing to family I have.”

  Josephine’s jaw dropped, her fists loosened and Josiah Hartt realised in some ways she’d been acting too.

  “So you came here.” He said. “To be with your family and avenge the death of your mother. But you’re not as alike as you think. You’re still here. Your so called family are down the valley attempting to take an innocent life but you couldn’t quite bring yourself to go.”

  “No.” Josephine refused to admit, “I’m not needed there…”

  “It’s a one man job, Elisa didn’t need to go - you could be there have too.” Hartt persisted. “You’d still be angry at your little brother getting into fights because you know it’s not right; you know. That’s why you looked so ashamed when I asked if you’d killed one of the victims and you said ‘no’, but you said it like that was a bad thing.” He grinned confidently. “You’re so fixated with this idea of revenge that you’ve convinced yourself it’s the right thing to do, but there’s something inside you, the old you, that’s still holding that delusion at bay. She’s still in there Josephine, you just have to find her again…”

  “You’re right…” Josephine replied gently, her eyes brimming with painful tears. “I don’t want to be here. But I have nowhere else to go…”

  “Oh but Josephine, you do.” He smiled at her, leaning across the table and checking the door to Edgar’s office remained firmly closed. “Do you have a surname?” He asked in his best reassuring tone.

  The woman sighed, deciding beside herself that Josiah was the man to whom she would confess. “You don’t know my first.” She muttered. “I lied to them when I came here, I’m not called Josephine. My name is Hope Finnegan. I didn’t think Hope would be all that appropriate living a life down here.”

  “That’s even better.” Josiah smiled. “It means you’re only playing an act…”

  “I’m not…” Hope groaned insistently.

  “…Just like me.”

  His final words stopped her dead.

  She tilted her head, lips pursed in intrigue. “You’re saying you lied too?”

  “Yes. My name’s not Oscar.” He nodded cautiously. “It’s not even White, it was first name that came my head because it was the name of Josiah Hartt’s friend and it was the first thought I had because she’s my friend too…” He abandoned his failing attempt at subtlety. “I am Josiah Hartt.”

  Hope Finnegan stopped, still unsure what to say as her first words slipped off her tongue. “The man Elisa kept talking about, the man they think is onto us, that was you?”

  Josiah smiled gently. “I was very onto you.” Hartt paused and awkwardly bowed his head. “The problem is, I wasn’t expecting to find someone like you, to find someone who’s… basically innocent.”

  “So what’s going to happen to me?” She asked with trembling lips.

  “I will leave here with evidence of what you did. You will be arrested, you will be taken to the Justice Trails and found guilty of conspiracy to assassinate a Patriarch, and that’s a big one Hope, that’s a life sentence. Unless… unless, you come with me. I know people in the Force, they’ll listen to me and after all; you’ve done nothing wrong, not yet. They can’t charge you with anything substantial unless I say otherwise. You’ll be let free with clean hands, no guilty conscience…”

  “What about the others, they’re not such bad people…”

  “You’re so hung up on justice - they killed Robert Acrimony, Matthew McCoy and John Price, tonight they try to kill another - even if I wanted to I can’t get them off murder. They’ll go to prison and rightly so. But you… I can save you.”

  “And you’d actually do that?” Hope Finnegan looked confused. “You came here to bring us down, but you’re willing to let me go?”

  “You’re bitter with revenge, you hate a man who it would be so easy to torture and even though you came here, even though you plotted against him you resisted somehow. That makes you so much better than me Hope, and if you’re still willing to let Cedric go, I could help you become even better. It’s already done, I sent Rosin Ash to stop Elisa and George, and he’ll be on his way back here soon. The games up. It’s your choice.”

  “And you protect me, you save me – what then? I don’t want to get dumped somewhere again; I don’t want to be put in some kind of home…”

  “You’ll stay with me. There you’ll find you again.”

  “Really? I’m sorry but you hardly seem the caring type…”

  “No. No, I’ve been reliably informed I’m not, but that friend I have, her name’s Lylith. I’m sure she’ll be able to help.”

  Josiah Hartt fell quiet at last as he slid back into his seat and looked at her expectantly. Her lips parted for a breath and an answer.

  It was at this moment that he heard the first scratchings in the tunnel outside. George and Elisa Smith burst through the door, whooping and cheering and dancing as they closed the room off again. They looked at Hartt briefly before turning back to Hope.

  “You should have seen it Josephine!” George grinned “It was perfect, it lit up the sky, the flames lasted for minutes and I could feel him on my skin. I swear even amongst all the chaos I could still hear him scream!”

  “It worked then....?” Hope Finnegan muttered above the commotion, looking unsurely for a moment at Josiah. “And nobody saw you, no Detectors…?”

  “Of course they did.” The Field Specialist paused for effect before cracking into a grin. “The whole valley saw, it turned the clouds red, how could anyone miss that? It’ll be in the papers first thing in the morning, Cedric Baltazar will be sweating under his bed sheets tomorrow…” She leapt forward, taking hold of Hope’s shoulders with the widest of smiles. “You know what this means Josephine? We’ve fulfilled our promises: three men are dead and that leaves only him. It’s time!”

  The far door of the room cracked open and a figure appeared in the doorway, looking at them with eyes sparkling with excitement. “Did someone order a killing?” Edgar Mulligan exclaimed with glee, leaving Josiah feeling like he’d been dropped into a musical, with a room full of open arms and beaming faces swarming around a him and Hope

  “Edgar, Taser is dead.” George said, running over to his leader like a lap dog. Mulligan gently patted him calm: “I know, you both did well but he was just a warning - it’s time for the main event.” Edgar pulled a rusty key out of his pockets and stood before the second door, placing the rod into the bronzed lock. His eyes opened further, his voice trembling with manic excitement. “Prepare the popcorn Oscar White, justice is on the billing, it’s the vengeful event of a century… we were going to get Josephine some pompoms but we didn’t have the time… Never mind eh?” He yanked the door wide open, leaving Hartt silent as he peered through the frame. Edgar was delighted by his horror. “This is how it happens!”

  The room behind was tiny, like a cupboard carved into the dirt. There was no lighting, but then it seemed the hole was only dug with storage in mind. The space was filled to bursting, spilling ove
r as Edgar let the door swing. The red tubes glistened with damp, wrinkled like old skin and the paper withered as the water sunk in. Each small tube was finished with a tail, tiny threads of rope jutting from a peak in the paper at the end. Dynamite. Tonnes of it.

  “Don’t look so disconcerted Oscar.” Edgar smirked. “This is justice in the making, with a man like Cedric - his dirty work was bound to come around and bite him on the tail. It’s nature, we’re just helping it along a little.”

  “I know.” Josiah stammered. “It’s what he deserves.”

  “Quite right.” Edgar smiled. “George?” He stated simply, to which the bulky man nodded and pulled out a pair of thick leather gloves, working them over his stubby fingertips.

  Hartt looked back at Mulligan with confusion on his lips. “Oh, don’t worry about him. He blisters rather badly.” The leader explained. “You though Oscar, you’re a sprightly young man, shame about the face but that can’t be helped, it won’t affect your ability to do the job.” He paused. “You’re going to move the dynamite, I mean, it has to get from here to a Patriarch in the next fourteen hours somehow and who better than the new boy?”

  Edgar’s smirk vanished. “Then you can help us blow him up.”

  George’s gloves scraped against the paper wrappings of the tubes as he dumped them onto the cart. Josiah winced in the knowledge that even the slightest bump could set the compound off. They worked in the shade of night, a heavy black carrying the bitter cold down the breadth of the forest, twisting through the treetops and the shifting layers of leaves. Hartt’s bruised hands were covered in dirt as he reached out for the next bundle and placed them on the wooden panel, the rickety wheels of the cart shaking and the long handle rattling.

  “You gonna’ spit on them then?” George asked as he shifted his feet deeper into the pit to reach for the last few stacks.

  Josiah looked to George in confusion. “I think I’ve missed a memo…” “It’s like a tradition.” The brutish man explained. “You give a spit and we get good luck, I did it right when we started.”

  “How quaint.” Josiah sighed, clutching another scarlet package and gently placing it down. “You know water can set it off too?”

  “Rubbish!” George grunted, heaving himself out of the hole. “These things have been sitting in a puddle for weeks, nothing’s happened yet. Besides, spit’s not water anyway is it?”

  Josiah didn’t bother correcting him and so gargled in the back of his throat and spat at the carriage, placing the bundle of dynamite down on top before he disgusted himself. George smiled and walked across to pick up the handle and began pulling the rusting frame across the coarse floor of the forest.

  Josiah wanted to seem keen and so jumped after him, clutching at the other end of the handle. “So where are you going to get him?” He asked humbly, testing the water.

  “We don’t know.” George said. “Edgar keeps things very close to his chest, and if he speaks to anyone it’s going to be Elisa. She’s a big impressive Detector by trade while I’m just a lackey with a dead sister. It’s not going to be me is it - I’m here for the groundwork only.” He stopped to check the load as he ran over a root hidden beneath a patch of moss and the whole heap bounced. “Not that I mind - Josephine and Elisa, they like the plotting, they like making Baltazar squirm. Not me though, I want swift justice and I want it to be carnage. I want body parts flying, I want his guts up the wall, and by the looks of what Edgar’s been hiding…” He glanced back at the stacks of red tubes, hundreds of bundles assembled in a pyramid all trembling as the ground moved beneath the tiny wheels “…I think I’m going to get it.”

  Josiah Hartt paused, a dirty air left after the brute’s vengeful outburst. “I don’t believe this is the way to do things George.” He remarked, hoping to repeat the enchanting effect he’d had on Hope Finnegan. “Where I come from, this sort of thing is revenge, but it isn’t honourable. You shouldn’t take him from the world, but you should take his world away…”

  His companion sighed. “I don’t know why you’re bothering with this, trying to turn us one by one. We know who you are.” George interjected so matter of factly Josiah didn’t know if he’d misheard or not, and the other man just continued to wheel the carriage along the uneven bed.

  The words rang in the eerie silence, Hartt’s heart in his mouth. He asked for confirmation with bated breath and tiny words.

  “What did you say?”

  “This whole act thing, you can end it now. You can stop hiding it.” George stopped sharply to face him with a smile. “We know who you are.”

  Josiah’s heart sank as he realised; “Hope told you…”

  “Who?” George quickly, turning quickly to face him.

  Hartt stayed mournfully quiet and pulled his waistcoat tight, pumping his chest out with pride. “Okay then, if we’re making introductions I might as well do it properly.” He grinned a toothy grin. “My name’s Josiah Hartt…”

  George laughed mockingly, raucous leering, red faced with a spray of spit erupting from his lips. “Oh we knew about Josiah Hartt a long time ago.” He leant forward, like whispering a secret. “No. We know who you are.”

  Instead of the appalled reaction George was expecting, Josiah took the opportunity of such intimacy to look down the length of George’s body and formulate a plan. If he was going to escape he’d have to put into effect his exquisite knowledge of the body swiftly and lethally.

  He looked up to the top of George’s sweaty head, the size of a melon perched unevenly on his thin slither of a neck. His hair was closely cropped, a pale white scalp hidden underneath. Below even that was where the frontal cranial bones met. If he struck there with his fist upon the cranial cavity the man would be knocked unconscious, or if he hit hard enough his brain would haemorrhage and George would die. He made a note to try and remember to be gentle.

  In that moment his eyes flicked to the man’s stubby ears, like pimples on the side of his temples. Two cupped palms either side of those would rupture the fragile eardrum causing concussion and leaving George severely disorientated.

  Though if he was going to take the man down he’d have to disable his pincer like arms which could all too easily fight back. A large bundle of nerves pass right in front of the human shoulder joint - a flat side of Josiah’s palm there would send hideous shockwaves of pain across his opponents entire body and, if struck well enough, the arm would become utterly useless.

  In one movement of the eye Hartt had worked out how he’d strike upon George’s defences, discombobulate him and then knock him cold. Yet even after those three lethal moves, as soon as George woke not too long after he would just stand and run back to the hideout. He’d tell Edgar everything. Josiah could easily fix that.

  The knee was the easiest target, so major in its structural support one blow could knock George off his feet. Hartt would simply lift his heel and swing it around, pressing against the side of his kneecap and dislocating it. The intense pain would mean George couldn’t move his leg at all, and so couldn’t fight back as Josiah twisted his feet sideways again and crushed the cartilage too. The effect would be the same as amputating his opponent’s limbs.

  George leant away with a satisfied smile, slowly pulling a gun from his pocket. As he clutched his finger on the trigger Hartt snapped his hands up, cupped them and pressing them firmly around George’s ears. The man’s eyes quivered and rolled into his eyeballs. Just as George began to fall Josiah lowered his palms slightly and slammed them into his shoulder blade. The hit was so hard Josiah’s bones rattled in his hand like they were encased in a bag of jelly, but George screamed with pain and disorientation as Hartt picked up his feet and forced them into his kneecaps. As his opponent sunk, Josiah cupped his bruised hands into a fist and smacked George on the top of the scalp, and like a shop window dummy he collapsed under himself.

  The gun fell from Josiah’s opponent’s hands and he kicked it away, turning on his heels as he heard far off whispers rising.

  Ly
lith White hadn’t had the most eventful Christmas. She’d had turkey at least; her Aunty had saved some from when she’d had a bit for lunch one day in October so it was fresher than usual remains. She’d had two presents, both from Eloise with their price tags still pinned to the front. Her Aunty refused to take them off a gift she’d forked out more than ten pounds for, which Lylith was grateful for considering she would never have guessed a new pack of socks and a tea towel cost more than two.

  She had heeded Josiah’s warning to stay inside where it was safe but there was no way she was going to spend Christmas alone, even if she did have to spend a few hours watching her Aunty smooching Mr Donovan on the sofa. But as the night fell and she finally left, her walk home was still filled with paranoia as every shadow became her enemy and each jolt of the head seemed to mask a figure in the corner of her eye. Even now, as she sat in her seat with the heath whistling behind her, she had to open the window and check for intruders and then check once more as soon as she’d settled down.

  It was approaching dawn and she’d been flicking through her book for a couple of hours by then. It turned out Social Interaction in the Workplace was quite a good read. It was only at the turn of the last page Lylith decided at last she needed to get out more, and so she headed for the entrance and shrugged her coat back over her shoulders.

  Then Josiah Hartt burst through the doorway.

  “Take the coat off!” He bellowed, racing past her and into a far off segment of the building. It fell silent and then he remerged, dashing into the living room. “No, better keep the coat on…Sit down!”

  She did so without question and as he raced around the same space without any great consequence she looked at him with utter bewilderment. “Right, okay, let’s get you up to speed…” He mumbled as he slowed to a halt.