Lucy nodded slowly, though her pupils remained dark as she slowly regained the power that had momentarily slipped away. “But you come so close don’t you Cedric?” She muttered. “The other day you shouted at Jessica, you scream at the staff all the time - there’s an anger in you that comes to the surface sometimes and I don’t like it at all.” She pulled out a file from beneath her dressing gown, the brown paper sliding through her fingers. “Times like this.” She placed it down on Baltazar’s lap. “I knew you’d killed of course, you were a General, you were a leader of soldiers; a wife of yours could expect nothing else. That’s why, when I first met you, I never listened to all the stories your friends told me. They were just trying to impress me for you of course, explaining how you’d killed so many and speaking like it was wonderful. That sort of thing seemed nothing like the Cedric Baltazar I’d met. Yet even you seemed to rejoice in those stories, and flaunt them like it was honourable. I just presumed to be so proud you must have only killed the bad men, the worst of men. I thought you were a hero.”
“You read the file?” He asked.
She nodded and leant over, peeling away the front sheet. The majority of the report was occupied by a thin black box and typed inside the vigorously formal details of a forgotten manoeuvre in the midst of battle. Her finger ran across the words, past the lists of soldiers and weapons, past the list of the dead.
“I saw this and I thought it was just another document, another meaningless, boastful act of war. But then I saw those words.” Her digit fell upon the bottom line, where the type was larger and printed in bold. ‘36 Civilians Dead.’
“That doesn’t just mean recruited soldiers does it? That means normal people, separate from war and separate from the fighting, normal people like me and our daughter who one night someone killed in cold blood. This form has your signature at the bottom Cedric...”
Baltazar coughed, his throat suddenly swollen, his lips as dry as sand. He ran his tongue across them, hoping that the simple movement would allow him to speak again. “I didn’t know.” He uttered. “If I’d of realised they were there I wouldn’t have fired upon that village. We only wanted to take out the bridge, just a manoeuvre…”
“But they died Cedric!” Lucy Baltazar snapped at her husband, drenching the man in spit. “Thirty six innocent people died, there’s no excusing that, there’s no good reason. No wonder you wanted me to give it back! I hadn’t read it then but now I have I don’t think I know who you are anymore.”
“Then maybe you never did.” The Patriarch began, excusing himself by turning on her. “You think I’ve changed; these past years when I’ve become bitter and sad, you think something happened but I was like this all along. You subscribed to this Lucy; you knew what you were entering here, you can’t start lording it over me now.”
“But you have changed! All this politics and power games, you’ve forgotten who you were.” She groaned, glancing away from him for a moment and looking to the floor, smiling to herself affectionately. “You remember when we first met?”
“Outside this building, the second week of my appointment here.” He mumbled. “Of course I remember.”
“I was carrying my books and my heel snapped in two. I twisted my ankle as I stumbled off the step, and even though you were walking by with armed guards wearing a thousand note suit you still stopped to help me.”
Cedric nodded in return, refusing to become as nostalgic as his wife continued with dreamy eyes. “You asked your men for some bandages and a doctor, and while I sat waiting in the mud you kissed my ankle four times over. One for every day you said. In four days it was better.”
Baltazar sniffed. “I looked that up in a medical dictionary...”
“But you looked!” Lucy pleaded. “You looked. Would you honestly do that now?” He remained silent, looking down at his squirming toes. “The way you speak to people, the people in that room; like Thomas Taser the night before they killed him. If you saw me on the ground that day you’d look away in shame. You’re spiteful Cedric, but worse than that, you’re angry now.” She sighed, looking away from him as she whispered off her final words. “That’s why we can’t stay here. I had to tell you sometime so now’s as good as any. You won’t win the election, not with all these murders. The press are saying it’s all in your name - no ball can make up for that. So on your last day here me and Jessica will leave and I will run for leader of the Valley myself. The first Matriarch - think of that. I’ve spent years in politics now; I reckon I stand a fair chance. If by some miracle you do win them over I’ll stay here by your side but if the public choose me… I’ll remain in this home and you’ll have to go.”
The Patriarch stumbled, brain throbbing like it was pressed against the wall’s his skull. “You won’t do that; we’ve been together for years-”
“I have to.” Lucy Baltazar tutted, standing up and fastening the top button of her husband’s shirt, then pulling his tie up to meet it. “It’s what’s best for our daughter. I know you understand that Cedric because you still care for her, even now.” She turned her head away as quickly as she could. “And I did love you sir. At least you have that.”
Lucy Creed made her way across the carpet and slipped through the door.
Lylith White felt like there was a tonne of bricks resting on her chest. Her lungs were tight as she breathed in and out, her muscles aching as she moved for the first time in hours. The white of the ceiling was grey in her eyes, his lips numb as ice as she went to groan for help. She tried to lift herself, but her arms felt like leaden slabs lying against the ground. A face fell over her, with big wide eyes and teeth bared; an attempt at a smile that appeared rather sinister.
“I tried to make you an apple.” The unmistakeable tones of Josiah Hartt filled her ears, out of place cheer where there should be none. He placed a hand beneath her back, lifting her off the cool concrete of the floor. “You know, I don’t think you can. I’ve made a toaster for cheese but I can’t make an apple - it’s funny how the world works isn’t it?”
Lylith’s eyes began to unblur, the fazed features of his face becoming sharper by the minute. His hand, gently messaging the back of her neck, helped somewhat. Before she could recover fully however he leapt up and began pacing around the room. There was a large wooden table in the middle, and from what she could see, the windows were filled with dirt.
“Sorry - I’m rambling.” He muttered. “There’s nothing wrong with rambling thought, it’s good for the soul. So, apples. It’s hard to make an apple when you’re only got some cauliflower wrapped in cling film. Who doesn’t have apples? My thinking was that old saying, an apple a day keeps a doctor away – and, well, you need a doctor so that was the next best thing. Of course they used to say that but now they’re telling you to eat five fruits a day, does that mean we’re getting unhealthier or are we all just paranoid…?”
“Josiah!” Lylith snapped, finally mustering a voice in her throat and silencing the man who was gabbling so vigorously. “Did you say I need a doctor?”
“Oh, yeah, you got shot in the chest with a stun dart. They’re not meant to leave a mark but that one got lodged somewhere unpleasant.” He walked across to her and smiled, massaging her wounded chest. “You did need a doctor but I think I’ve got it covered. Like I said, I have cling film.”
She looked reluctantly down her body and found to her dismay her chest was wrapped in the same thin, taut plastic containing beneath a scarlet liquid which seeped across her shirt like split ink whenever she shifted her weight. The image was quite distressing, but beneath the scarlet trail she could distinguish the comforting shape of a black wound healing.
“My head hurts.” She groaned gently.
“I know, mine too – I got hit with a fist.” Hartt beamed. “But yes, yours will for a while. Instead you were struck with the metaphorical fist of Curare - it’s a drug used in stun darts like the one they fired at you, it can induce a bit of disorientation and dizziness for a while, but trust me; metaphorica
l fists bruise much less.”
“Where are we?” She croaked, spinning her head around the plain white walls, unsure if their buckling towards her was a side effect of her disorientation or whether the earth seemingly packed all around them was taking its toll.
“We’re at their headquarters.” Josiah muttered. “Assassination HQ, we’re not dead yet which means surely they don’t want to kill us. Keeping us alive however would be a mistake because I have a way of getting us out of here.”
Lylith White lurched upright, finally alerted by his offer of hope. “How?”
“Repo Glacialis Lylith, do you remember those? They set this churn of events in motion, four or five days ago… You know, I do believe I’ve lost count. They’re incredible little things. Just above their intestine they carry a sac which, when the spider bites, opens to allow an injection of a powerful dose of that drug Curare into your blood. Though the dose they let out in a bite is a much stronger form of the toxin used in the dart that struck you down today. It acts in the first fraction of a moment on the acetylcholine, which is a part of the body that works to stimulate the muscles. The acetylcholine does this by sending a signal to a junction between the nerve and muscle but Curare attaches itself to this junction, acting as barrier against the chemical orders and essentially cutting off any commands for movement from the brain. Until Curare’s effect eventually fades the nerve can no longer function and the muscle remains useless, paralyzed without its orders. All this in a few seconds – the fact the spider can do this is a miraculous achievement of nature, it’s an argument in favour of the existence of God-”
He stopped suddenly, casting towards her the widest grin as she unsteadily attempted to stand. “But do you know the best thing about the Repo Glacialis Lylith? The very best thing of all…?” He dug his hands into his coat and pulled out a tiny glass jar, rattling it between his fingers with a grin “…I’ve got two of them in my pocket!”
Before she had chance to think over the implications of his secret container there was a scratching behind the door and Edgar Mulligan burst through. Hartt slid the jar sharply away. Lylith noticed this, and hoped soon he’d set them free.
Behind Edgar in the corridor waited a patient Elisa Smith, leant against the mud and seemingly holding something still out of sight.
Her leader looked from Josiah to Lylith with a smile, a strange shape upon his lips that bordered on a leer. “So, Josiah Hartt, uncovered at last.” He began. “Your wounds are starting to heel I see, you’re lucky you got out before they recovered completely. Of course you took one of my men with me…”
“No Edgar.” Josiah retorted, stopping the rant in its tracks. “That’s not how this works - you don’t get to talk, not now. If you brought me here for a reason then you’re going to have to listen” He started pacing round the table, speaking with two fingers teetering on his lips. “You punched me to the ground, you shot Lylith in the chest but if you wanted us dead we’d both be in shallow graves by now, so you want me to do something for you. Quite what that is is rather obvious, what with your delusion that murdering a man can be excused by this obsession that it’s restoring some kind of natural justice. If you killed Cedric Baltazar, as things lie now, you’d just be murderers, he would die but the name would live on as that of a hero.
However, if you had evidence to prove he murdered a factory full of women in cold blood then his death wouldn’t be looked upon so bitterly. Old Patriarch Baltazar would not be mourned over by his people because he’d be exposed as a murderer too. Am I right? You think that will make you innocent, and that’s what you want because the very worst thing that could happen to you, Edgar, is being put back in prison again. I don’t blame you - that would be the most horrible thing that could happen to me too. My worst nightmare infact.” He smiled, realizing his position of power at last. “But that’s the one thing you don’t have isn’t it? Evidence. So what, you want me to conjure some up? I know I’m good, if that’s the understatement of the day, but evidence can’t just be made up, it has to be found. And I don’t think you have the time for that.”
Edgar Mulligan smiled at Josiah. “I think that’s where you’re wrong.” He pulled a crusty old sheet of paper with an old pen hanging from the corner. He slid it across the table to Josiah, where the man picked it up and swiveled it around. “Evidence. You just have to find it.”
“What does that mean?” Lylith retorted, looking closely at the document. The bulk of the page was filled with a table, crammed full with facts of an event long passed. Lists of weaponry and the names of the dead.
“That is the report on what happened that night.” Edgar explained. “The name they gave it was Operation Naked Wrath. A little pretentious for my liking, I prefer to call it a massacre.”
Hartt ignored, pointing for Lylith’s benefit at the bottom line of the report where a scrawled name was written in ink. “Look at the signature. If this was proof that the Patriarch was guilty of blowing up Ashton town’s factory, the name on that line would be General Cedric Baltazar’s, but it’s not, it was signed by a man called Todd Finch…”
“Then how does that prove anything?” She quizzed.
“It doesn’t. They don’t have evidence, and when there is none you have to approach things a little differently.” Josiah began. “They have to disprove the lie.”
Edgar picked up the line of enquiry and began to explain to her himself. “The document before you is the official public report concerning the attack on Ashton town. You can get a copy of that in any public library but the one on the table is the first copy. It tells a lie, that Cedric Baltazar wasn’t the officer in the charge of Operation Naked Wrath. We believe the original, the one Baltazar would have signed himself before someone decided it needed to be covered up, is in the possession of one of the members of the Board. They’re untouchable, so we have only this to go on. If we can find the flaw in sheet and prove Todd Finch wasn’t really in charge then all eyes will be on the Patriarch, the truth would be told.”
“But how can you know Todd Finch didn’t give the orders?” Lylith asked.
“It is a fake!” Edgar snapped. “Cedric Baltazar blew up the town of Ashton on November 23rd; most the Board wouldn’t deny that. But so long as that form, released to the public and accepted by all, says differently then his hands remain perfectly clean. Don’t you think it’s a coincidence that Todd Finch, whose name is now on the file, died in battle during the last years of the war? When people read about the attack and get angry about the General who sanctioned it, the Reform don’t have to be seen to dish out any punishment, the culprit is already dealt with.”
“And this pen?” Lylith asked, picking it up by the silver nib and swinging it between her fingers, its curved black surface gleaming in the dancing firelight.
“It’s his, Cedric Baltazar’s, the one he used to sign Todd Finch’s name.” Edgar said. “It took us years to find it, but that’s it, the very one that was put to that paper.”
“Then that’s it!” She exclaimed excitedly. “Fingerprints, they’ll be all over this; if they match the Patriarch’s then you have your proof, you can let us go!”
“No Lylith.” Josiah sighed. “The stem of that pen, its pristine – there’s no smudges, there are no indentations – that’s been used and wiped clean long before it found itself here today. That’s no good to us now.”
“You’re right Josiah.” Edgar Mulligan nodded, “Which leaves you with only the things on the table before you: a typewritten document and an unmarked pen. Solve the case Hartt, prove Cedric did it, and we’ll let you go.” He clapped his hands with glee. “…Get to work!”
Just as Edgar went to walk away, Josiah leapt across the room and pulled him back again. “But what’s my incentive Mulligan? Helping you?” He looked at the killer with a satisfied grin. “You haven’t even provided tea, so I’m not quite sure you’re seeing things from my point of view. I’ve been tasked with preventing you from killing Cedric Baltazar and blowing up Stone Hal
l, and now you tell me you’re not going to do this unless you have proof? If I don’t find any then that’s my job done and dusted. I’m the only one who can get evidence from this for you, so it’s not like you can kill me either. So tell me Edgar, I’m intrigued - I turn my nose up at people who spit in the street, why should I help a murderer like you?”
Mulligan let the comment linger for a moment before opening his lips for a gentle utterance. “To fix the mistake you’ve already made.” He turned to the corridor. “Elisa?”
Obediently the Detector yanked her hands back and pulled something forward. A figure clumsily fell from the shadows and into the light, coughing as she stumbled to the ground around Mulligan’s feet. The woman’s head was masked with a rough brown bag, which the leader proceeded to roughly yank off her head. “I present to you – Josephine Finnegan.” Edgar snarled. “Or should that be Hope?”
The woman was at last revealed, her blonde hair clumsily hanging over her bruised forehead. Her cheeks bled, scars like craters running deep into her battered flesh. She looked up at Hartt with pleading eyes, brimmed with the water of tears.
“Hope…” Josiah groaned, looked down with sadness at the gagging woman sprawled across the concrete.
“Yes, it seems you made quite an impact in the time you spent down here.” Edgar muttered. “In the forest before you struck down George you seemed to think for some reason ‘Josephine’ had revealed to us a secret you’d imparted, but we knew your name wasn’t Oscar long before you arrived so quite why you’d believe such a thing is a mystery to me. All we could assume is that you’d revealed something to her while you still were playing your act, which is rather odd behaviour; almost like you trusted her, like you were plotting and planning with her behind our backs...”
“It wasn’t like that.” Josiah groaned shamefully.
“Well quite right, it would seem that it wasn’t.” Mulligan continued. “You see, Hope here came to your tower as soon as you’d escaped, she wanted to help capture you again, perhaps with a modicum of reluctance, but she played her part. You thought you could trust her but it seemed you were wrong, and that was okay, she was still with us, she still wanted to make sure Baltazar was dead. That is until she came to me this morning and told me she wanted to leave.” Edgar’s face dropped, eyes the darkest black as he looked down at Hope on the ground with disgust. “You’d offered her immunity, that much was obvious as soon as she said those words. You’d changed her Josiah - you brought back her conscience which makes her as much an enemy as you. But a useless one. If you don’t prove that form is false then we’ll put a bullet through her skull.”
Blood & Baltazar Page 24
