by Colby R Rice
Minutes crawled by, and she could hear the curious passersby stop and murmur to themselves about her before they turned back to their own business. Whether they helped her or not, it was over. Much like her Forge, she was still nothing more than a blackened stump against the gray sky.
Burraaooogh! Her stomach complained. Apparently, it disagreed with its most recent meal.
"Sh," Zeika whispered to it, forcing a smile. "Could be worse, right?"
Her stomach twisted again in pain, and she took in a long, slow breath. Her nose was deep in the soil she had unearthed, and she could feel calm fill her as she took in the soft dewy scent of it. Her consciousness began to unravel, and she knew that this was it. The submission to eternal peace.
"I'm sorry, Manja..."
Snow melted beneath her breath, pooling under her cheek. Things were better this way. Manja would live, and she didn't need to see this. Zeika closed her eyes.
Nice try, darling... A very nice try, indeed.
Whether those were her thoughts or his words, she couldn't tell. But Zeika groaned as she felt two hands wedge themselves under her body and lift her up. Then, she was thrown down into a warm space, and the gray daylight extinguished into a black rolling growl that filled her body... warm, strong, steady.
****
Zeika had been brought inside and was now at a table, pain still pinching the sides of her head. Hard wood of a chair pressed into the bones of her back. Someone tilted her head back, and something warm was being poured into her throat. She choked and coughed it up, and whoever it was stumbled back as she vomited onto the floor.
"Fine, then. I'll leave you to it, at your leisure," The someone, a man, said, before his shoes clicked off and out of hearing range, leaving her alone.
She shifted, and breathing hard, she blinked, trying to make sense of where she was. The haze was solidifying, forming hard lines of marble, the shine of steel pans, the smell of--
Food.
She blinked, shaking off the haze as she looked down. There was a hard roll and some milk, and a bowl full of some kind of thick stew. Mouth watering, she inhaled the food, swallowing down chunks of steak, potato, corn, beans, and carrots, all seasoned with slices of onion and garlic... things she hadn't eaten or even smelled in months.
She didn't look up until five minutes later, when she was done and the bowl was clean. Sal Morgan was sitting there, having slithered back into his seat without her notice. His eyes glittered with fascination.
"Where's little Manja?"
"Dead." It wasn't hard to let the tears come to her eyes, to let her voice waver just a bit as she spoke the lie that would save her sister.
"That's a pity," he muttered, and he sipped from his china, letting pity hang itself in the air. Neither the word nor its meaning seemed to touch his features. His face was ice, and his eyes stared at her with something less cold, but not at all kind. "And how have you been?"
"You found me with my face in the dirt," Zeika whispered as she looked away. "What do you think?"
"Still so charming, Zeika. I'm flattered."
"Sorry. I appreciate your help, I guess. It's just--"
"You've been through a lot lately. I know."
She looked up, trying her best to swallow her anger. "Do you?"
"Indeed. Manja's illness. Your family's abandonment of you. The burning of your little shop. Everything." Sal took another sip of his tea before he sat back to look at her.
"Guess word travels fast."
"It does. Particularly when I am the one to give it."
Her eyes widened. "What?"
"Dear heart. How do you think those Alchemists found your Forge in the first place? Who do you think tipped them off?"
She felt her lips part.
"Isn't it fascinating... how loyalties change at the sight of a few extra dollars?" Sal sat back. The lines of his face seemed to deepen with pleasure as he watched her. "You never wondered why the Guild held you and Manja as wards of the state? You never asked what happened to Mommy and Daddy? Why they never called?"
Zeika felt her hands ball up tight, and slowly, she rose from her seat.
He peered at her over his teacup. "Am I going to have to make you sit down again, Ezekiel?"
She narrowed her eyes. Her fingers twitched, ready to drop him, just like she did the Ninkashi at the Guild. He didn't know what she was, but he was about to find out.
Sal seemed to notice that she wasn't intimidated and raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what you think you have up your sleeve, little girl, but remember, I'm the only one who knows where your family is. Besides, the Alchemists think you're dead. I can change that impression quicker than you know. Or, I can be convinced to keep my mouth shut. It's your choice."
Eyes burning, she unballed her fists and sat back down.
"That's my good girl." He poured more tea into his cup. "I'm glad we could reach an understanding." He sipped and sipped, the silence seeming to tick away with a soundless, beatless rhythm.
"Did she sell us to you?" Zeika demanded.
"Who?"
"My mother. Did she sell us to you for drugs? Money?"
Sal laughed, genuinely amused. "I couldn't pry you or your little sister from your mother's grasp with a crowbar if I tried, my dear. I had to enlist my friends at the Guild for that. Did she sell you... no. Never. Her love is unquestionable. But of course, I couldn't have Demesne Five thinking that." He regarded her for a minute and then smiled. "Strange. I would have thought you'd ask me about him. Not her."
"About my father?"
"About Jonathan Quinn."
She slowly sat back, horrified, feeling the festered wound on her heart open. It was a blow she hadn't expected.
"You know," Sal continued. "The day that Johnny graced me with his opinion on the matter of you and me--"
"There is no you and me."
"And yet, your friend gave his opinion nonetheless." Sal ran a finger along his face, from his brow down to his jaw, along the white shining scar Johnny had given him. "I knew then that he was unmanageable. But I suppose high-school hormones will do that to a young pup when the local bitch is in heat."
Zeika felt her jeans wrinkle beneath her grip. "Is he... is he with my family?"
"Sadly, those winds have already blown, my dear. I'm not quite sure how it ended, but like all other stray and rabid mongrels, he was put down. At my order."
"Are you enjoying this?" Her voice quivered with rage.
"Immensely."
"Why are you doing this?! The Vigils, me, everything. Why?!"
Sal cocked his head. "I believe the more important question is what you can do to stop it."
Think, Z. Come on, come up with something...
She wasn't exactly sure what he was asking, but by the way his eyes brightened, she couldn't imagine she'd be walking away from this with her life or dignity in tact. Sal was a killer, a silent savage who lied with the best of them and did it with a gentle bedside manner. He'd murdered Johnny, and her family would be next if she didn't do something. They'd be next... and all that'd be left of them would be the pile of lies that Sal would heap onto their graves.
The sobering thought reminded her of the truth: that she had no clue if her parents were even alive, much less being held captive. He might not even know where they were. He could just be blowing smoke to put fear in her so he could get away with whatever was on his seedy mind. If that were the case, there was no need to barter... she could just get the jump on him with her powers and walk off.
But if Mama and Baba were still alive, then they were being held captive by a madman, one that she would have to subdue to get them out.
"You don't believe me," he said, reading her thoughts. "Well perhaps you need incentive." He rose from his seat. "Would you like to see your parents?"
"Are they alive?"
He smiled. "My dear, I'm many things, but a voyeur of the dead is not one of them. Now come."
He got up and walked out the kitchen. Leery, she followed him out and through his vineyard until they reached an outside cellar. As he opened it and a dank, musky smell wafted out of the darkness, Zeika tensed with hate: he was keeping them in a grimy cellar?
He descended into the basement, motioning for her to follow. The moist air disappeared behind her as she ventured into the warm underground. When she hit the last step and looked around, she began to feel sick with the realization that behind the pseudo-genteel demeanor, Sal wasn't just an asshole-- he was also a psychopath.
The cellar was huge, the walls cobbled with old stones like some madman's medieval dungeon. The only things missing were the torches and the hulking, hooded executioner. Built into the walls were smaller hovels, barred and chained: prisons. They were all empty, and somehow, the back wall of the prisons was way too close to the bars, nearly flush with them even. No man could fit into these things, not in one piece at least.
Her parents weren't here.
"Where are they?" She seethed, losing patience.
Sal reached by the stairs to hit a lever, one that she hadn't seen, and a smooth sliding of metal filled the room. The stones on the back wall of the prisons began to depress, first backward and then sliding up, to reveal the real interior of the hovels, hidden behind the false prison façades.
Her eyes widened.
Fifteen bodies, all moving with the sluggishness of starvation and fatigue, filled the uniform prison. They all turned to her, a dozen gazes of mourning pouring into her skin at the same time. Sunken faces and dingy bodies were draped in torn shreds of clothing, and a rank smell wafted from the prison quarters. These people hadn't eaten or washed in a long time.
Numb, Zeika staggered towards the prison bars, navigating her gaze from face to face until she spotted one she recognized.
Baba.
Her father was out cold in the corner, laid flat, his left side raw and bloodied. His shirt, the same one he'd been wearing when she last saw him, had been torn open, a gaping wound peering out from beneath the dirty shreds. The gash was swollen and jellied--
Days old. Infected.
Even worse, Baba had thinned. His face was wracked with pain, sweat beading on his brow as he shivered violently in his sleep. Zeika felt tears spring to her eyes. He had a fever, and the infection in his side was spreading. He didn't have much time.
"Baba..." she choked out.
One of Baba's attendants turned around to the cell bars, and Zeika choked out another whimper as she recognized the wasted, emaciated face of her mother.
"ZEIKA!" Mama cried out, running over to the bars. "You're alive, Jesus!" She was crying, and Zeika trembled as her mother wrapped cold hands around the back of her head and pulled her into the bars. Zeika reached her arms through the cell and hugged her back.
"Mama... I'm so sorry!" She sobbed. "I thought-- I thought-- and Baba--"
"Get out of here, Zeika! He's crazy!"
"No! I'm not leaving you! I'm getting you out!" Zeika lifted her hand.
"DON'T!" Mama threw her back, away from the cell bars. " JUST GET OUT OF HERE!"
Zeika started forward again, but Sal grabbed her collar and yanked her back before he hit the lever again. The cold and solid stones slammed down, muffling her mother's cries.
"DON'T, ZEIKA! DON'T DO IT!"
That's all her mother shouted through the sheet, and Zeika already knew what she meant. Don't use your powers.
"Mama! Baba!"
She ran up to the door and pounded. Each raging slam against the door rocked the bones in her hand. She hated it, feigning powerlessness. She hated pretending, hated that she could get them out but couldn't, all because an Azure was standing right there, watching. Because Manja was still alive. Because if Zeika blew her own cover, she'd blow Manja's as well and resurrect the Vigils, and she couldn't do that, especially not if she and her parents were going to die here.
Her body heaved with sobs, and with her forehead smushed against the cool rocks, she slammed her fist into the faux door again and again, bruising and bloodying her knuckles-- and she screamed, long and loud.
She whipped around to face Sal, her eyes filled with tears. "LET THEM OUT! PLEASE!"
Sal smiled.
"Please..." Zeika choked out. "What do you want? What do you want me to do? What do you want? Money? I don't have any money. But-- but I can get some. I promise you. If you just promise to let them go. Please, Sal. My father-- all of them-- he'll die in there! Please!"
Sal "tsk-tsked" and shook his head. "Sorry, darling. There's no way you'd be able to earn enough for an exchange. But... cash isn't the only currency I accept."
She felt the hate compound. "Done running my mother ragged?"
Sal smirked. "Everything has its time of glory and its fall."
"For everyone but your kind?! Is that it?!"
"I'm glad you're finally beginning to understand."
"YOU BASTARD!"
"Yes is the only response I'll accept, my dear. What's it going to be?"
Zeika slapped her hands to her face and leaned against the metal sheet. She could still hear her mother through the wall: Don't. Tears dripping through her fingers, she nodded.
"That's my good girl. Now, shall we?"
She looked up to see him gesturing towards the stairs. She wiped her eyes and staggered past him, up and out of the dripping dungeon. His footsteps resounded against the stairs behind her, around and through her-- dark pulses of Azure triumph enclosing her like an invisible fist.
It hurt. After over a century of painless and pleasurable existence, someone had actually injured him, and now it was time to regain control. After the Faustian creature, and then the child Alchemist, and then his foolish hobble into Rai's sights, Xakiah needed this. He needed someone to understand that this was his mission, his world, his rules. So when he felt Beige tremble beneath his gloved grip, he began to feel alive again. He began to feel like himself.
"He-- he said he knew how to activate it! He said he knew how to get it to work! He said he'd make it worth it! For the Order! That's the only reason why I'd ever-- please... please! I-- I only sold half of it, I swear!" Beige was on his knees, and Xakiah tightened his grip on his hair as the man tried to turn and plead. "Cotch! Cotch, please. Reason with his Lordship. I-- I made a mistake! I've trasspessed--"
"Trespassed, you blithering fool," Xakiah muttered, barely able to keep the smile off his face.
"TRESPASSED! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, God!"
Vassal Moss stood in front of Beige, ever silent, no emotion betrayed on his face. There was nothing left to discuss. After the freight had crashed, Xakiah had primed the traitor as ordered and had brought him here to the edge of the Seventh, far from Beige's mansion in the outer hills. Beige had already hemorrhaged the information they needed: the buyer of the other half of the Page, the place it was located, the details of the sale, the admission of guilt. He'd said it over and over to him, and thrice more when Vassal Moss had finally arrived.
"You said you'd erase my record from the Silver Pact!" Beige babbled, frantic. "When I checked it-- you hadn't done a thing! I was scared, can't you see that? Scared for my life!"
"So your impatience led you to betray your brethren," Vassal Moss said. It wasn't a question.
"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO DIDN'T HOLD UP TO OUR DEAL, YOU BASTARD!" Beige snarled.
Moss cocked his head, and Beige retreated back to submission, wringing his hands. Tears began to slide down his face. "I-- I mean, I-- I didn't mean to! He threatened to release my record to the world if I didn't sell it to him!" Beige let out a choked sob. "He was sniffing around and found out about the Page and he used me. It wasn't my fault. Please... I was so scared, what did you expect me to do?!"
Moss' lip curled downward as he stared coldly at Beige. "I expected you to ascend above your own cowardice, perhaps. I expected you to act like an Alchemist. The innocent young Azure, Ryan Moreno, is dead. The Alchemic Order is now
endangered because of your sale of the Page. Both served you unquestioningly, loyally, and you repaid us all with nothing but treachery and death. You are unworthy of our kinship."
Then Xakiah saw it, the slight wave of his Vassal's hand before he turned away. Xakiah drew his knife from the sheath at his shoulder.
"Vassal!" Beige shrieked, his voice breaking. "Please, my Lord-- please! Tell me what I can do to fix this!"
"I am sorry, Councilman," Moss murmured. "But this treachery cannot be forgiven. And even if it could, clemency is not mine to give. You have betrayed the Order. I merely act on its behalf."
"No! No, please-- bleck!"
Xakiah blinked, surprised as Vassal suddenly slashed his hand through still air, and Beige's throat opened. The quivering head stiffened, and the body under it went slack, purging blood. A wet, shredding noise filled the air as the remaining flaps of flesh and cartilage began to give. Xakiah sighed, re-sheathed his blade, and let the head fall to the carpet, Beige's wide-open neck whispering to cold marble.
"Forgive me, Proficient," his Vassal said softly. "My temper got the best of me."
Xakiah shook his head and stepped forward to speak words of comfort. Then he stopped, seeing the coal-like burns on the wooden floor under his Vassal's feet, the wavering of his Vassal's shadow as he staggered.
In the next moment, Xakiah was at his side, catching him as he fell.
"I am fine, Proficient." Then Moss hacked, a wet and wretched sound that brought up reddened foam. "We need to get the other half of the Page."
He was right. They didn't have much time, and while Beige might have been babbling to save his life, he had said that the buyer knew how to activate the Final Page. If that were true, then he and Vassal needed to move. Quickly. And yet... his Vassal's body felt so limp.
