by Colby R Rice
"Ugh! Do you believe in talcum powder? This is worse than mustard gas!"
Mama burst out in laughter. Baba shot her a playful glare. In spite of herself, Zeika stared at her mother, love filling her up. Seeing Mama laugh lifted her heart in ways she had forgotten years ago.
"You women sure are a pain! Look, I'm a man, not a rose garden!"
"And your feet are swollen again," Zeika scolded. "You should soak them in some salt water."
"Salt? No way, I don't want to be near the stuff," he muttered, managing a chuckle.
"Okay then, I'll get some cold water. Hopefully, that won't offend your dainty feet."
He cut Mama an amused glance. "You hear how she speaks to her father? That waitress job is teaching her some things I don't think she should be learning."
Zeika dumped Baba's boots into their usual soap and water bucket where the smell of grime and brine would soak out. Then, she filled an old pan with cold water. At night, his feet were always twice the size they were in the morning, from being on them almost sixteen hours a day.
"Thanks, love," he said affectionately, putting his feet in. He sighed in an obvious relief, almost melting into the living room couch.
As Baba unraveled, the three of them set the table and served the food, and for an hour, all of the worries of the world melted out of the room as they laughed and ate. They chattered away about a myriad of things, and Manja sang songs until she got hungry enough to plunge her face into her food.
Right in the middle of the bread pudding, though, Baba put his coffee cup down in the middle of the table. It was a gesture that Zeika knew well. She nodded and got up to get her ledger.
Mama looked at him with exasperation. "Merco, do we have to? We're having a nice family dinner."
"You know we have to. Time to talk business." Baba then turned to Zeika who was sitting back down at the table. "Did your mother tell you what happened?"
Zeika looked at her father cautiously. A lot of 'things' were happening, but what he knew and didn't know was beyond her. "No..." she responded carefully. "No, she didn't."
"Contractors are getting squeezed out of Demesne Six because of the incident. We're being limited to the Fifth and Seventh. I'm not sure how long it's going to last, but that's what we're working with now. That knocks me down to about 1,200 a month. How are things on your guys' end?"
Mama leaned her cheek on her hand. "On a good day, I pull about twenty articles, for two dollars each. On regular days, fifteen is my average."
"So let's get that down at 900 dollars a month. Zeika?"
Zeika was rebalancing the ledger. "Seven hundred a month. About a quarter of that is from the Diner, and the rest from the Forge. Hardware is moving at 50 bucks a pop, give or take what clients are willing to barter along with it. Negotiation fees bring in about 30 bucks a week."
"Have you crafted lately?"
She shook her head. "We got slowed down because Manja was swelling up again. We just finished deliveries a few hours ago."
"Have you practiced?" Baba asked, eyes hard.
She knew he was asking if she had been staying on her Majkata. "Two days ago. Haven't had time since."
"Make time. For that and for dance. Even if it means fewer deliveries or less time forging. Are we clear?"
"Yes, Baba."
She was about to apologize when a tinny knock at the door drew her from her seat. It was one of the boys from three rows back, and she could never remember his name.
"Hey, Z. You got a call at the front. It's from Mort. He's on line three."
"Oh, thanks!"
Zeika excused herself from dinner and jogged into the misty night air, towards the public telephones that their lot shared. The set up made communications much cheaper for the whole lot, the downside being that everyone knew your business.
"Mort!" Her voice hit a high twitter as she put the receiver to her ear. "Got work for me?"
"Yeah, about that..."
As the lilt in Mort's voice turned downward, Zeika tensed. "What is it?"
"I called because I need you to turn in your uniform. We're letting you go."
If Mort didn't have to push out each word with such slow force, Zeika would have thought she was dreaming. She creased her brow, the confusion going deep. "What?"
"Please don't make me repeat myself. This is hard enough already."
Her cloud of confusion turned into a storm of fury. "You're firing me? For what?" Her voice was shaking, and it was all she could do to keep the decibels down to an even hum.
"Lady Webb is threatening to withhold business if we don't let you go."
"WHAT?! She comes in and starts throwing her weight around, kicking us like we're animals, and you're going to punish me for it? The Civic Order just put a work quarantine on Demesne Six, Mort. My parents can barely get contracts. I have a family to feed!"
"So do I, Zeika. And there is no way I can do that so long as you're employed here."
"But this isn't my fault! She came in with the vendetta!"
"I'm not blaming you. I'm just asking you to understand. I've already asked the kitchen to pack you up some food. To help you and your family until you can find a way to get back on your feet. I gave you a month's advance on your weekly pay, to help you guys get over. Mackey's got it for you at the back."
Zeika leaned her forehead against the booth. "You've been planning this all along, haven't you?"
"We are indebted to Lady Webb and to her family for our business, and for our protection from the war--"
"Protection from a war they started! When they started muscling in on Civic Demesnes, Civic Guilds! They made the world like this, and now we have to lick their feet for the scraps?! Screw 'em, and if you're going to bend over for her like some choir boy, then screw you too!"
"Now see here, Zeika!" He tried to protest, but then he sighed. "Please, kid. Let's not end this on a bad note. Take the severance pay, okay? And I'm really s--"
Zeika slammed down the receiver and stormed back to the hut. There was no point in playing nice. So long as Roni hated her, Zeika'd never work in the Diner again. Or anywhere else in Demesne Seven for that matter, depending on how far her Azure arm reached. The money and food that Mort gave them would probably last their family only a week before they'd start to feel the pull. Either way, she needed to go get it.
From there, she didn't know what would come. All she knew was that things were going to get very real. The Forge was all they had left.
The Jericho had been busy indeed.
The small apothecary had been empty when Xakiah got there... in a way. Dozens of jars filled with piss-colored formaldehyde were stacked on the shelves, and floating in them were shriveled sacks of smooth muscle and slick bone. A liver, a stomach with the entrails, a heart... all the size of a small child's. He walked up to the old splintered writing desk in the middle of the room, noting the open doorway behind it. He didn't doubt that it led back into the Jericho's lab and "butcher shop", where the blood-letting was done. Pearl-sized chips of ivory shined up at him from the surface of the desk. Teeth, too small to belong to an adult. Next to them, a thick spindle of sewing thread, a suture needle, and a needle driver.
Perhaps as a young boy he might have been disgusted, but he had grown up since then, had begun to understand the merits of shrine-keeping.
He picked up the smooth row of baby teeth from the table, examining them-- and then his eye caught sight of an old hardback book with decaying, yellow pages. Ignoring the dried splotches of rusted blood at its corners, he pulled it towards him and opened it to find the Jericho's chicken-scrawl.
Progress Report on Sweet Susie #6: Cerebellum and basal ganglia still operative, femoral catheters installed, C3H6N6O6 at stomach cavity, C3H5N3O9 at left node, vagus nerve and sinoatrial node reconfigured-- energy recycling engine nearly complete. Set point reconfigured...
The scratchings named body parts of the brain, circulatory system, the heart... and
there were also formulas for various chemicals, two of them being high explosives, C4 and nitroglycerin. But what a Jericho-- a specialist in surgery and medicine-- would need with such things was beyond him.
"That gun in your hand won't do much for you, Jericho. I've already closed the barrel," Xakiah said without turning around. "That, and you don't have enough light in here."
He could hear the man behind him stiffen, and the gun clattered to the floor. Footsteps shuffled forward, and as Xakiah turned around, he watched his Echo walk the Jericho into the room by his collar. It shoved him forward before dissipating back into its shadow.
In his wrinkled, blood-spattered lab coat, the old man looked worn to the bone, but the wide smile betrayed a boyish glee as his gaze rolled up and down Xakiah's body.
Hairs raised up on Xakiah's neck. The way the Jericho was staring at him wasn't at all human. It looked unhinged. Clinical. As though he wanted to take him apart.
"Ah, so I finally have the pleasure of meeting the infamous Kaelen X. Cotch. Assassin of the Order. Your notoriety precedes you," the old Jericho said, smiling. His gaze was glassy and necrotic.
"If my reputation precedes me, then you are a fool to still be here."
The Jericho's smile widened. "Not everyone will scatter like mice when Death's at the door."
"Where is Sophia Green?"
"She's here. And there," the Jericho answered. "I'm afraid you won't find much of the little Azure left--"
Xakiah closed the distance and slammed the man into the wooden floor by his neck. The Jericho sputtered beneath the dull crack that erupted from his skull.
"I'm not sure that answered my question."
The Jericho gurgled, something like wet laughter crawling from his mouth. Xakiah slipped the eight inch field knife from its sheath and angled it at his jugular, but the Jericho's smile never slacked, the corners of it flecked with foam.
"Retribution is coming," the Jericho whispered. "You'll get to experience it in a very personal way. We're going to make sure that all the world's woe is carried by your children. As you've done to ours. Your kind is going to burn... starting with Sophia Green."
Xakiah was about to start carving until the foam at the man's mouth began to expand. It dribbled down his cheek, taking curls of flesh with it. Xakiah's eyes widened, more in curiosity than in fear. Whatever the liquid was, it was eating away at the Jericho's skin.
The man's body temperature shot up, and Xakiah stumbled back at the sudden flush of hot-iron heat that had nearly burned his palm. The Jericho was heaving, spasming on the floor, and his flesh began to balloon. As he swelled, a wet and spotty groan rolled out, evaporating into the thick, acidic foam that was now pouring from his mouth.
Xakiah took a step back, his instincts kicking up, telling him to run, even though the man's sudden throes weren't making any sense--
The Jericho's eyes filmed over, a clear viscous liquid pouring from them, emitting a smell Xakiah knew well. Nitroglycerin.
He sprung over the man's body, flying from the mouth of the apothecary into the dank and dark tunnels he'd had to navigate to find it. His footfalls echoing in the damp sewer, he ran faster than he ever knew how, propelled forward by what he knew was coming, by the sudden absence of the Jericho's garbled struggle--
The explosion that followed was magnificent and all-encompassing, a supernova of light, heat, and sound. Xakiah grunted as skin peeled from his neck and shoulders, as he was thrust forward and landed in a hard roll further down the tunnel. Behind him, slimy stones had been blasted from their mortar, and they rained down in a sandy waterfall of soot and rock, forever burying the entrance to the Jericho's hovel.
Ignoring the stings and ringing in his ears, Xakiah stood up and dusted off his hands. He frowned, looking back at the charred, sinking wreckage. The crazy bastard had turned himself into a walking bomb. The bomb had been a small one, probably no more than a pound of C4, with a nitroglycerin trigger-- wherever he had hidden it-- but the tight space of the sewer had magnified its effect. Had he lingered any longer, he wouldn't have survived.
As for the Jericho... God only knew how he was able to survive a surgery invasive enough for him to carry an explosive. The sheer mechanics of such a thing were impossible, and aside from the heat burns on Xakiah's back, he had no evidence to prove his story.
One thing was for sure. Whatever they had done to her, Sophia Green was dead. While there had been a collection of body parts in the apothecary, the smaller ones had looked relatively fresh. Not to mention the teeth he had picked up. He had no doubt they were hers.
He slumped down against a clammy stone wall and flipped through his memory until the page in the Jericho's lab book glowed brightly in his mind. Though he didn't generally report his comings and goings, he needed to log the details of the incident for the police files. If the Jerichos and Koa were in league to initiate terrorist attacks against Azures, the Order and alchemic law enforcement would need to start building up contingency plans.
He took his cellphone out and flicked it on, ready to log his investigation when two messages came up. One was from Muirgin, the wet-tailed rat holding a piece of the Page. According to the encrypted note, Muirgin had another shipment he wanted moved. Not high on Xakiah's list of priorities, but as much as he hated dealing with the rat, he always got a good cut out of it.
The second message was from Captain Palmer at the Demesne Five Headquarters. He hadn't written anything, but he had attached a dossier of updates on the precinct.
A quick scroll through the message told Xakiah everything he needed to know... and the most important thing. There was a new recruit with a closed file. Caleb K. Rai. Palmer had given him access to the recruit's file, but Xakiah couldn't read past the seal. He didn't like it, but as long as this "Rai" stayed in his place, there shouldn't be a problem. And if he didn't, well... Xakiah smiled. He loved breaking in new blood. But now wasn't the time to muse on how to geld the new stallion.
Work now. Play later.
He logged the Jericho's notes, the man's last chilling words ringing in his ears. All the world's woe will be carried by your children. He frowned. It wasn't just harmless psycho-babble. Xakiah had learned long ago how to tell the true jingos from the bullshitters... crazy or not, the Jericho hadn't been lying about retribution coming.
Not before mine, though.
Anyone even tangentially connected to the Sophia Green kidnapping had been hunted down, from drug pusher to school teacher to messenger boy. He had killed many of them, but not all. One thing he'd learned in his career was that loose ends had a nasty habit cropping up just when you thought you had already closed a contract, and sometimes, they left you ass up. But never him... he always had stragglers to bleed when he needed more info. The only question was who'd be next.
Einee, meenie, miney, moe. Kirk Grainger, you're next on the roster.
He stood up and stretched his muscles, breaking the soreness out of them, and with a thought, the skin on his neck and back began to regenerate. He walked out of the tunnels, knowing that Kirk had probably skipped town already, running scared. Xakiah smiled, knowing he would comfort him in ways he couldn't imagine, because he was going to blast away his uncertainties, uproot them through the arts of terror. He would show the infidel the divinity of torture-- and share with him a sweet, prolonged anguish that would linger in Xakiah's heart for as long as an alchemic eternity could last.
When Zeika sneaked into the back alley of the Lakeside, Mackey was already waiting for her, sitting on the back step and smoking a cigarette. The pack he handed her was bulging with food, her severance money in a hidden pocket on the side.
"When you left that day, Crony Roni practically held a protest to get you fired," Mackey muttered in between puffs. "I'm sorry about all this, Z. Bad luck, bad timing." Except he didn't sound sorry at all. He took his cig out of his mouth and frowned at how small it was, looking more worried for himself than for her.
"Yeah. Than
ks." Zeika tightened the straps around her shoulders.
"I tried to talk some sense into Mort, but he's too yellow. Old Crony Roni in there's got him by the sack."
Zeika shrugged. "Who don't the Azures have by the sack?"
"Everyone except you, apparently."
She stopped gearing up to shoot him a quizzical look.
"Oh come on, you know what I mean. Your mouth, your attitude... they get you into worlds of trouble. They got your job lost, and look at you, still walking around with your chin upwind."
"If you want to keep your nose above the bullshit, you have to lift your head. It's the only way to really see where you're going."
He paused, considering this. She didn't wait for it to sink in.
"Take care of yourself, yeah?" She said, turning to leave. "Don't let Croni push you around."
Mackey waved her goodbye and went back inside, and she continued back the way she'd come. The shadows of the alley seemed to grow around her as new thoughts clouded her mind. The pack he'd given her was heavy; maybe the money and the food could be stretched out to two weeks if she stretched it thin and controlled their rations. Plus, the Guild would take care of Mama once she was committed to Angels Nine. It'd be one less mouth to feed, so her working at the Forge full-time might make up the difference. But they'd still be tight...
Someone was walking down the alley. Towards her.
The outline of the body was framed against the night, and as Zeika got closer, she realized it was a little sprat of a girl, no thicker than her hip, dressed in Azure robes. A clot of bitterness curdled in Zeika's chest as she noticed how clean and bright her robes were... but Zeika also averted her eyes, trying to fight the urge to roll up and hide her own sleeves, which were saturated with dirt.
The child's shoulder slammed into her body, cold and heavy, a sack of wet cement knocking a concave into Zeika's right side. She felt the wind rush out of her as she stumbled and hit the alley wall, the clammy chill of the child's touch causing Zeika's skin to recoil.
