Ghosts of Koa, The First Book of Ezekiel

by Colby R Rice

  He'd moved on to the Cartegenas'.

  He stepped onto the front stoop of the old donut shop and checked the sign on the door. Yeah, this was the place. He stood there for a second, letting the soft silent night fill him and relax his thoughts. Part of him felt he should have started with Zeika's gun shop, but people tended to move more than places did. He had to catch up with as many witnesses as possible and get a story that made sense. The gun shop could wait.

  The moment he lifted his knuckles to knock, all life inside the donut house seemed to cease. The dancing shadows in front of the drapes disappeared and the lights behind them extinguished.

  "Not suspicious at all," Caleb muttered.

  He zipped up his trench coat, concealing his holstered Glock. His department issue had been turned in upon suspension, but nothing was going to stop him from carrying his own. Not while Koa and the Ninkashi were slithering around. He knocked lightly on the door.

  "Quién carajos eres tú?!"

  Caleb creased his brow. Angry already? He hadn't even started asking questions yet. "La policía, señor Cartegena. Detective Caleb Rai. Solo quiero hablar con usted." His Spanish sucked, but he thought he'd gotten at least that right.

  "La policía azur no son bienvenidos en mi casa!"

  Guess he got it right. The man was getting more pissed by the minute.

  "I'm not just a cop, sir. I'm a friend. A friend of Ezekiel Anon."

  The door swung open, and Caleb stepped back to see an older woman, who must have been Mrs. Cartegena. She had pushed her husband out of the way to open the door. Good thing too. The man had a wooden baseball bat at the ready and would have batted a thousand if she hadn't stepped in front of him.

  "Please, detective," she said softly, wringing her hands. "Come in."

  Mr. Cartegena snorted, putting down the bat. "And take off your goddamned shoes."

  *****

  "We didn't know how far he would take this. That he'd use her for the repeals." Tears were running down Mrs. Cartegena's face as she told him of Sal Morgan and his Vigils. "After the guild attack, he came to us, told us she was missing. He sounded so sincere. He asked all these questions about her, about where he might be able to find her. He said our cooperation would be for her protection. But we-- we didn't know--" She broke down, sobbing. Mr. Cartegena rubbed her back.

  Caleb looked at them both over the steam of his coffee. She had poured three mugs, but hers was left sitting there and going cold, probably now bitter with the tears that spilled into it. Shame. She made a damned good cup.

  "Typical Azure garbage," Mr. Cartegena chimed in, his voice thin of patience. "He talked out of one side of his neck and then sold us all out. And the Anon girls still haven't turned up. If only we'd known the three of them had been in it together, we might have been able to stop it."

  "Three of them?" Caleb put his cup down, his eyes fixed on the old man.

  Mr. Cartegena shook his head. "Parents. They really do make the best pimps. They know all their kids' best selling points."

  Caleb leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. "Wait. Zeika and Manja were sold to Sal Morgan?"

  "A sale disguised as a legal adoption. Money for guardianship."

  "Rumors?"

  "Fact. Straight from the mouth of Kenneth Taitt. And he'd know. Adoption paperwork goes right through the Guild of Almaut in the Fifth."

  Ken Taitt. Master of the Guild of Almaut. The same man who'd given information on Zeika to the Halls of Pact, the same man Caleb couldn't find. If Taitt had known that the Anons had been sold, why had he allowed it to happen right under his own nose? Something about Mr. Cartegena's facts didn't add up.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Anon were desperate to be reunited on the Island," Mr. Cartegena continued. "Both of them set the whole thing up with Sal. They promised they'd bring the kids to the Guild, the social workers would hold them there, and all Sal had to do was to collect them when he was ready. They even helped him file the adoption papers. Or so the story goes."

  Caleb laced his fingers, remembering the dark mountain of a man that Merconius Anon was. There was nothing remotely desperate about him. Even in the wake of the lot raid, he had stood in front of Zeika like a tank, cutting her off from Caleb the moment he'd tried talking to her. Caleb had interviewed him, not for long, but long enough for him to know that Merco loved his kids. Selling them wouldn't be on the table in the least, not even as a nuclear option.

  He chose his next words carefully. "I suppose even the most centered parents might feel pressured in hard times? Even Merconius?"

  "If you ask me, I'd say it was probably more the mother's doing than Merco's. She's the one with the altitude issues, and she's the one who knew Sal more-- personally."

  He didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what Mr. Cartegena meant. Even so, he had to force himself to not look surprised. Zeika had told him her mother was a k-head, but she'd never said she was banging Morgan. It explained a lot, not that it made him feel any better. This whole thing just got worse and worse. He couldn't help but search for a bit of hope: "I'd think even the most desperate mother would consider all her options before she'd sell her own children. Don't you?"

  "Guess you never heard of the Cray triplets."

  Caleb cocked his head. He had heard of them. They'd been all over the missing child reports posted around the Protecteds. He'd found their file in the cold room too, along with their pictures. Three chubby boys, barely a year old, with gray-blue eyes that giggled. Michael, Langdon, and Clinton, he thought they'd been named.

  "No," Caleb said carefully. "I've never heard of them."

  "We all thought they'd gone missing. We thought maybe some sicko had snatched them, to hold them for ransom or something. That was until someone dropped a bag off on the steps of the Demesne Five City Hall."

  The old man shuddered, and Caleb felt his stomach tighten at what he knew was coming.

  "There were... pieces. Blackened, like someone had left them on a grill for hours. And a blanket too, fresh, clean and new, with the boys' names embroidered on it. We all sent the Crays our condolences... but it wasn't long before the Mrs. broke down and admitted to a close friend that she'd sold her boys to the other side. All of three of them, packaged and gift-wrapped, to some Azure Alchemist."

  "Who?"

  "She didn't know. He never removed the hood or cowl. Never spoke. He just handed her the money, and that was it."

  "Why weren't the Crays reported to the police?"

  "Because Civilians deal in Civic justice. Our way. Not yours."

  "And where did Civic justice leave Mr. and Mrs. Cray?"

  Mr. Cartegena shrugged. "Alive. Won't be able to have kids anymore, though. Or so I heard."

  "So you heard."

  The old man smiled tightly and took a sip of his coffee. "So I heard."

  Caleb frowned at him, wondering if he should have hidden his gun after all. For a reputed "sweet old man", Mr. Cartegena had a surprisingly morbid idea of justice. Caleb pushed his displeasure aside and pulled his pad and pen. "I'd like to ask you some more questions about Sal Morgan, if you don't mind."

  "Yes, enough with the small talk. My wife and I have better things to do than to entertain APs all night."

  Caleb raised an eyebrow. If kids being sold and barbecued was small talk in the Fifth, he wasn't sure he was ready for dinner conversation.

  "Do you have any idea why Morgan would buy the Anons? Any investment in particular, philanthropic or otherwise?"

  Mr. Cartegena shrugged, impatience clearly riding on his shoulders. "He's slaking the Azure thirst, obviously. I thought detectives were the smart ones of the bunch."

  Caleb ignored the dig and continued scribbling. "You think he went through all of that trouble for sex?"

  "Didn't you?"

  Caleb looked up from his pad.

  "Anthony..." Mrs. Cartegena warned.

  "Get off it, Carmen!" Mr. Cartegena shoved his finger at Caleb.
"Everyone saw him trailing her around the Fifth. Wining and dining at the Lobon, snuggling up with her at the Guild!"

  "Anthony, please!" Mrs. Cartegena touched his arm, her face pinched. "I'm so sorry, detective."

  "It's all right, ma'am." Caleb looked directly at Mr. Cartegena. "On my honor, I never touched Ezekiel. She was like a little sister to me. Manja too."

  "That's not too encouraging. I heard about you. Heard about your brother."

  "Anthony--"

  "What did you hear?"

  "Enough." Mr. Cartegena's gaze was a fire on Caleb's skin. "Tell me something, pig. Is it true? Did you kill him?"

  "For God's sake!" Carmen's voice quivered with fear. "Anthony, por favor, he's an Azure--"

  "Azure, my ass! He comes in here asking questions in our house, in our Demesne, like he's a god or something?! Who the hell does he think he is?!" He turned his rage on Caleb. "She was like a daughter to us, both of them! And you, what are you going to do with all this information, hm? Use your notes as a spank bank?"

  Caleb stood up, hands raised. "Look, I'm not here to cause trouble. I'll leave."

  "Of course you will! Right when you're called on to speak the truth, you want to leave! You and all your lot interrogate and harass our people, but you aren't men enough to hold hands with your own demons!"

  Caleb stared at him for a long time, considering this. Finally, he said: "Ask me again."

  "What?"

  "Ask me again. About my brother."

  Mr. Cartegena eyed him warily, the rage still simmering. "What are you playing at?"

  "Nothing. Demons and hands, I suppose."

  "Did you kill him?"

  Caleb turned to him, full body. "Yes," he said finally. "I killed him."

  The words sounded strange on his own ears. They were the same words he'd thought over and over for the past two years, and yet he'd never spoken them. Not to his parents, not on the stand, not even in the dark warrens of prison, where secrets either slipped out or were beaten out of you. He'd spoken a terrible and yet incomplete truth, one that could damn him in the end. And still, somehow, he finally felt free.

  Mrs. Cartegena's jaw dropped. Even her husband looked caught by surprise. The mystery that the world had racked its brain about for years was finally solved, not in a cherry-wood court, but over coffee in a crappy donut shop. Caleb let them take it in.

  "But, why?" Mrs. Cartegena stammered. "Why would you... your own brother..."

  Caleb didn't let his gaze linger on either of them. The conversation was over. He grabbed his coat, shoved his pad into it, and turned towards the door.

  "Was it a murder of necessity?" Mr. Cartegena ventured. His voice was smaller, softer than it had been the entire night.

  Caleb didn't turn back around as he threw on his trench coat and pulled on his hood. "Aren't they all?" And he walked out into the night, leaving the Cartegenas' behind him.

  The Protecteds were being overrun, Franz was saying. By Ninkashi and police, both of whom were moving inward. Smugglers were staying off the borders, no customers. But he had a way out, a way to get her and Manja protection, and maybe he could even get them across the border, if that's what they still wanted. He said all of this while pacing, while eyeing her and the kid and sizing them up, as though he was debating something. Finally, he stopped.

  "I got an offer for ya, if you can handle it. You didn't wanna listen before, but I reckon I've got your full attention now."

  Zeika nodded, even if reluctantly. There was no way she was going to try to get Manja to the Island on foot, not now. The Ninkashi hadn't left them a choice.

  "I've got some friends need helpin'."

  She cut him a look. "Friends."

  "Yep, even ole Franz's got his fellers. And from where I sit, I think you could help 'em out with something. Like with getting rid of our little Azure problem."

  She eyed him with sincere disbelief. Most of her though, was seriously considering reaching for her gun.

  "You're a Koan recruiter."

  "You catch on fast."

  "Why would Koa use someone like you-- some strung-out wino-- to enlist ghosts of war?"

  Franz smiled tightly. "Because when a man's laid out at the bottom, all he meets are the fallen. To be true, I never fancied meeting you here. The Almighty Zeika Anon and her little stooge. Amazing, ain't it? How life turns us about? Makes peasants of kings and queens--"

  "--and makes shit from what was already chicken ass," she snapped evenly. "World's gone to hell, and we've gone with it, true enough. But it doesn't make you any less of the prick you already were, and it doesn't make Koa any less a group of terrorists and thugs. I'll go to hell long before I become one of you."

  "Well that ain't too nice--"

  "You raided our lots, murdered our people."

  "And now we are the only ones who can protect you, queenie. So I'd get off the high and mighty and get to listenin'. We're closing ranks to new recruits, and you and the kid don't have much time left."

  "You said you needed me to handle the Azure problem. Sal Morgan. Are you talking about a temporary solution? Or a permanent one?"

  "You're a smart girl. What do you think?"

  "I think you want me to shed blood so that Koa doesn't have to."

  Franz chuckled. "Koa'll take responsibility for his death, whichever way it comes. Hell, he could keel over from a stomachache right now, and we'd say we poured the sugar in his tea cup. It's what we-- what did you call us?-- terrorists, do. Keeps up morale, keeps down Azure power. The question is whether or not you'll ride that same car to your own salvation. It's a sweet and easy ride. I suggest you take it."

  "Sweet and easy aren't exactly the words I'd use to describe pre-meditated murder. And what you're asking me to do isn't just murder. It's assassination."

  "Get me straight, sugar. Sal Morgan is gonna die whether you have a hand in it or not. We all are. If you just happened to guide him to the grave, well... I just don't see much a difference in the end result, is all."

  "I--" She shook her head. "I can't. What you're asking me to do... I can't kill another human being. No matter how disgusting he is, I can't take Morgan's life." She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. "Franz. Is this really the only way?"

  "You're the survivor. If there was, you would have found it."

  He was right. They'd been sort of okay until today, living just below the radar, using all the mouse-holes. Now Sal, Koa, and the Ninkashi had caulked those holes up, but not before throwing the poison in. She looked at Manja, who was praying with her head down in one of Franz' filthy corners. As much as she despised him, he was right. She hadn't found a way. She had failed.

  When she finally turned back to him, it seemed her look of submission was all he needed. He smiled a sooty grin and opened his arms wide.

  "You're doin' Papa proud, m'dear. Welcome to Koa trade school."

  Zeika hunched down on her haunches, becoming very aware of the sudden tightness in her chest. She began rubbing her temples.

  "We got a three-day crash course that'll get you through initiation in no time."

  She turned away from him, unable to meet his piggy eyes. This was disgusting. Barbaric. But this was happening, and it was happening right now. She needed to get a grip ASAP.

  "You listening, kid?"

  She didn't turn around; she just rubbed harder. "Yeah," she whispered.

  "Good. You need three skills in order for Koa to have some use for ya. You need to be our eyes. You need to run delivery. And you need to kill when necessary. I've already given you the target for your last deed, and that ain't negotiable. Recon's about bringing information that's useful to us, and delivery's to do with smuggling of certain... antiquities."

  "Antiquities?" She snarled. "Why don't you just say drugs, guns, and bombs?"

  "I'm a classy lad. But gun runnin' shouldn't pose too big a problem. Not for you, anyways."

  "I don't deal to Koa. The Anons d
on't deal to Koa."

  "You act like your turds don't float to the top like the rest. D'you think the guns you were dealin' before were going to the local nunnery? Or the museum perhaps?"

  He walked over and turned the stock of his shotgun towards Zeika. Her heart stopped as she stared at the insignia emblazoned on its metal. It was hers.

  "Nothing fires like an Anon cannon, right, sugar?"

  She stood up slowly, seething. "How the hell did you get that? And from who?"

  "You can try to protect your product from "the bad guys" all you like, but you can't protect people from themselves. That's one thing Sally and his boy Burke got right with Act 948. Civilians were hockin' their metal to us. Not in droves, but it was enough. You can't blame 'em. They needed the money, they were hungry. Just turned out that their promise to you had a price, and Koa could buy it out, is all."

  Zeika furrowed her brow, a sudden sickness fermenting in her stomach. She'd been supplying Koa all along. But how much and for how long exactly? Was she responsible for Act 948? For the Koan raids in her Demesne? For the deaths that followed? It wasn't just her and Baba's gun shop that the Order had closed down, but most Civilians had bought from them. From her.

  "So sensitive, you women." Franz was admiring her, his face softer than he'd ever looked. "But your existential crisis needs to wait. Focus. You got three deeds. Three Demesnes. Three days."

  She finally looked up at him, frazzled. "You need me to run recon, smuggle illegal weapons, and then cack Sal Morgan. In three different Demesnes. In three days? Are you insane?"

  He shrugged. "Ain't my rules, honey. That's how we get the best of the best. And there's more to it than just the deeds."

  "Oh. More. Yeah, great, let's fucking super-size it."

  "In order to start initiation, you need the blessing of two recruiters. They gotta be two folks that Koa trusts who'll approve of you and who'll vouch for you. You already got mine. Gettin' one more should be easy enough, 'specially with your charm. You're so good at that sweet talk."

  She folded her arms. "When does it start? The countdown."