by Colby R Rice
Xakiah didn't bother to make sure the Echo was doing its job. Instead, he was lost in his own thoughts, putting together a plan. He'd analyze some of the evidence himself, then tap into what CSI and forensics would pick up at the precinct's lab. He'd determine who, exactly, terminated Morgan. Then he'd explain things to Vassal, sketch out a plan to catch the assassin and the Page, and then he'd execute that plan, close this circle of hell for good.
Things would be fine. Even if the murderer had been Koan, things would be just fine.
The affirmation looped in his thoughts, becoming a crucible around the inferno in his chest. The killer would pay with blood, gallons of it, because now Xakiah was sure: whoever killed Salvatore Morgan now had a piece of the Final Page.
Caleb hadn't come this close to vomiting since his first year out of the Academy. He stood in the doorway of Sal Morgan's bedroom, and for a moment, he could barely get himself to walk in. The scene had already been secured, photographed, and sketched. Joseph's forensics team had combed the mansion, but no one had touched the room too much, and Caleb didn't blame them.
The blood stunk as it slowly rotted against the walls. It was everywhere, spackled against the ceiling, marinating into the sheets, clumped and jellied onto the shining mahogany floor under the bed. The ruddy chunks of flesh had begun to decompose, the now-black entrails hanging from his gaping belly, resting against the sheets like dead fingers. His mouth and cheeks had sunken inward, his lips twisted in surprise beneath maggot-ridden eyes.
"Ugh, GOD!" Luke had just walked in behind him, and his accent bent as he turned his head away from the scene. "Bloody fuck!"
"Too quick," Caleb shook his head. "Way too quick."
"You could have warned me!" Luke reached into his pocket and pulled a particle mask over his face. He handed one to Caleb.
"There's something wrong here," Caleb muttered, slipping on the mask.
"You don't have to be a Druid to figure that out, now do you? Jesus..."
Caleb looked to his partner and smirked. "What I mean is that the body decomposed way too quickly." He lifted his walkie to his face. "Joseph?"
A buzz, then a clear signal. "Yeah."
"Were you able to determine the cause and time of death?"
"Cause: I'm still determining that. Looks like asphyxiation via some sex game that got out of control. Though to be honest, the bruises are way weird... I still need more time to look at it after the coroner removes the body. As for the time of death, that's also weird. The body looks a few days old. Maggots have already set up shop. Limbs are bloated, livor mortis and autolysis have already set in--"
Caleb walked over and knelt down near the bed to look into Sal's face. "But his head."
"Yeah. Exactly. It's decaying faster than the rest of the body. No swelling, nothing, as though it literally just skipped over the rest of the decomposition process. I've never seen that happen before ever. I mean, unless the guy had most of his face tissue removed in life... I don't know what to tell you right now. We're going to have to wait until the autopsy. Take a look at the bed, though."
Caleb cocked his head examining the stains. "The stains are fresher," he said. "Not even hours old."
"Right."
"So, okay. Fresh stains, old corpse?"
"Yeah. Like I said. Weird. We're really gonna need you to wrangle up the witnesses on this one. The body's puzzling, but whoever did this cleaned up and cleaned up good. Bleach, mops, the whole nine."
"The APs find anyone here?"
"Nope. The wife's away in the islands, and no one's heard from her, either. APs are trying to track her down now, but they've been weighed down with other cases. Grave robberies, or something like that. It took us forever to document this scene because the other half of our team's been working on that bullshit. We're stretched pretty thin, man."
Caleb raised his brow. He hadn't been to roll call since his suspension, but this sounded pretty ridiculous. "Grave robberies?"
"Yeah, I don't know. A few dozen stiffs were dug up around the Protecteds last week. Wild. Anyway, one thing at a time. We should all have a report on the Morgan murder in the next few hours or so."
"Thanks, Joseph. Let's get a drink later."
"Hell yeah. I'm headed back to the station right now with the team. We got all we need. Over."
Caleb stood up and turned to Luke, who was scribbling furiously on his pad. "I think whoever killed him was the one who called it in. Can you get me a warrant?"
"Absolutely," Luke said, still writing. "Send me the affidavit with me as the witness, and I can have it to you by morning."
Caleb pulled out his phone. "Sent. I also sent you the information that I dug up at the Silver Chamber and around the Fifth. People connected with Morgan, with the Articles39... with Ezekiel."
Luke looked up, his blue eyes wide with surprise. "You think they're all related? To the murder, I mean."
"Yeah. Just read the files. There's one more witness I need to track down, but call me if you hear anything new. I'll be in later."
Luke waved him off before going back to his work, and Caleb walked out, pulled up the directions to Guildmaster Kenneth Taitt's house.
Zeika had waited until after 11:30 PM, after AP activity around curfew had slowed down. Cold biting wind whistled through her clothes, and her back itched terribly. Yet she continued to walk, boots crunching in the snow, Caleb's duffel bag on her shoulder. She passed under the Kingsbridge Road train station as she approached the front doors of the Demesne Five Headquarters, and almost lost her nerve when she saw a cop smoking in the distance. He extinguished his cigarette against the stone, not noticing her as he turned to walk back into the station. She clenched her gloved fists, to steady the trembling in her fingers.
You can do this. You have to do this.
She leaned against one of the metal balustrades holding up the empty train station, the front of the police headquarters in clear view. There was little traffic tonight, so she stood there in the middle of the street, gathering all her courage. The cold gnawed her ears and close-shaven head; she missed her hair now more than ever, never realizing how warm it had kept her most of the time. Finally swallowing her fear back, she reached into her robes, pulled out her black ski mask, and rolled it down over her head and face. She threw on her hood and started walking towards the police station.
Inside her robes, she put a firm grip on her Beretta, fully loaded and chambered. She stretched her vocal cords, dropping her voice an octave, and making sure to keep it there, though not much talking was going to be done.
She walked through the gate and into the front doors, where the warmth and the light of the station filled her, where purpose filled her--
Do it.
--and she lifted her gun into the air and fired three times, filling the warm place with angry bursts of thunder. People in the lobby began to scream, duck, and run.
"Get on the ground!" Her deeper voice fell foreign on her own ears, but it felt in control. Powerful. "Or I'll blow your fuckin' heads off."
"In most recent news, a bizarre string of crimes very rarely seen in the Protecteds: a rash of grave-robberies have been reported throughout all three Civic Demesnes over the past month. Troubling to city officials but even more disturbing to Civilians in the wake of the Ninkashi attacks, police are now scrambling to solve these strange crimes as soon as possible. WKCO6 news reporter, Frank Romana is live in Demesne Six's Saintland with a story you'll see only on WKCO6."
"Thank you, Alicia. The citizens of local neighborhoods are shocked and appalled, but most of all, they're frightened. Here's what some of them had to say."
"I mean, it's crazy, but this doesn't really surprise me. The Protecteds are so poor, people probably think the bodies have gold on them or something," one witness said. "Ugh, barbarians!"
"It's one thing to steal stuff from the coffin, but to actually take the (beep)-ing body? That's gross. What are they gonna (beep)-ing do, a blood sac
rifice? Eat it? Boink it? What the (beep), man. Sick."
"Zombies. Let's just call it what it is. Zombies. With those vampire things walking around, you didn't think this would happen next? After the attack on Guild Five, I'm scared to come out my home! Seriously. The world has gone crazy."
Caleb scoffed as he came out of the shower into the living room, drying off. He'd heard the whole thing from the bathroom and snatched up the remote to change the channel to something more reasonable. He had hoped Joseph had been pulling his leg, but clearly not. Stealing corpses? People were officially going nuts.
He flipped channels, but nothing was on this late, so instead, he found the public access channel that broadcasted proceedings in the Silver Chamber. There was nothing nearly as pivotal as the Articles39 repeals, but he liked to stay informed-- even if they were only talking about demesne budgets.
He threw on some clothes and walked into the kitchen to start breakfast. He cracked a window, lit a cigarette, and before long, a shot of espresso and a slice of pound cake had been neatly arranged on a tray. Next to it sat a bowl of miso soup and steaming hot rice. It had been a long night after he'd left the murder scene, and it wasn't over. His search for Taitt had once again turned up a lot of dead ends, locked doors, and busy signals, as though he and everyone he'd ever known had collectively decided to skip town all at the same time. So Caleb had come back home to score a few hours' sleep and a meal before going back out and re-doubling the search. It'd done him some good.
He blew a long string of smoke out his window before turning back to beating his eggs. He'd just started to pour the yolks over his rice when the Congressional crawl was interrupted by a siren blare-- all coming from the television.
What a bullshit cable connection...
"Ladies and gentlemen. This just in: at 11:49 PM last night, a rogue Alchemist stormed his way into the Demesne Five Police Headquarters and opened fire--"
Caleb sputtered and whipped around, staring at his television.
"--though not directly at officers. The rogue apparently just wanted to get their attention for a greater scheme: the robbery of their weapons cage. Luckily, no officers were killed or harmed in the attack. What you are about to see is real footage of the robbery, and we do warn you, the footage is disturbing."
Eyes glued, Caleb walked over to the television, balking when he saw the 5'5" shrimp walk in through the front doors, lift his gun, and fire off a few rounds. He was wearing a balaclava and the wolf-moon robes of a Desmene Five Civilian. But what came next was unreal. As the officers pulled their weapons, the intruder lifted his hand-- and changed the cops' clothing from cotton to bronze, encasing them in full-body casts.
Holy hell.
He watched as one of the cops, still encased but with hands unencumbered by metal, began to squeeze the trigger of his gun. The gun didn't respond, and the robber walked up to him and snatched the firearm from his hand before making rounds to the other cops. The robber plucked the misfiring weapons from the human statues and threw them into the duffel bag on his shoulder. Metal to fabric. Caleb snapped his head to the kiln of soft blue silk hanging over the back of his love seat, understanding. This had to be the same Alchemist, the one who'd trashed the Sigma Express.
He looked at his watch. 4:29 AM... this happened hours ago. Why the hell hadn't anyone called him?
The newscaster continued on. "Even more disturbing, the robber looked no older than a teenager, though alchemic law enforcement has no record of teenaged Azure Alchemists currently missing in action. The Demesne Five Headquarters Police Captain, Jebediah Palmer, could not be reached for comment--"
The newscast muted as the front door slammed behind Caleb, his breakfast going cold on the counter.
Panting, Zeika dragged herself through the dark, not seeing, but believing full well that she had found Koan Hollow 12.
For a long while, she'd sat in the basement of her Forge with her bag of guns, unsure of what she'd done or why. Was she trying to join Koa or bring their assassins to her? She'd bounced these questions around in her mind, knowing only that whatever happened, it would erase her from the world, just as she planned.
Still, her own actions puzzled her. She hadn't had to rob the police in such a fashion; so why did she? She could have made this all simpler, by pulling the trigger on herself and removing herself that way. But there were problems with this, the biggest being that if her body were ever found, it would connect her family to her crimes and put them in danger. It wouldn't do to just magically resurrect, even as a corpse. The world had thought she'd burned alive, down to the ashes. She needed to disappear completely.
The other problem, and this was only if she were truly being honest with herself, was that somewhere inside, she actually wanted to live. Some part of her believed that she deserved to live, and even if she didn't, she at least deserved a better death. She'd always promised herself she'd never let this world drive her to suicide, that Death would have to drag her out of it, kicking and screaming. She'd done a hell of a lot of that at the police station, that was for damned sure. Somehow, she wanted to do more. She felt compelled to do more.
She'd taken the APs for all they had, as much as she could carry, at least. Then she'd turned the rest of their weapons into silk, beautifully accessorizing their stone-drab weapons cage. Much as she felt bad about it, it had also been kind of fun. She'd never been able to flex her powers like that in public, ever. She'd had to do a few things she didn't like, though, including showing the tattoo on her wrist to the precinct's security camera, downloading the robbery footage, and delivering it to a local news outlet via the "k-head express".
Risky, but she couldn't take any chances that Koa wouldn't see her complete her last task. Turned out to be a good decision. The news had quickly gone national... and it was then that the tattoo on her wrist activated. It had begun to burn, its lines crawling around her skin. And now, as she drew closer to the hollow, the tattoo formed a solid number twelve, burning brightly in the dank tunnel.
Another few twists and turns brought her to a grime-covered door, partially hidden by the sewage around her ankles. She pounded on it, and waited, tense. She heard something unlock with a deep groan, but the door in front of her never opened.
Might not be a welcome party. Might be a trap.
Whatever they were planning, it was fine.
Iron bars shot up out of the water and slammed closed around and above her, caging her in. She was trapped.
Shit!
Her natural survival instincts kicked in, and briefly forgetting her plan, she reached into her robes to grab her gun. But before she could wilt down the iron cage, a trap door high above her slid open. Light fell into the tunnel, and three muzzles poked through the hole, aiming at her.
"Hands up, grip the bars, and look straight up, or you're dead."
Easy, Z. This is what you wanted, remember? You get deleted, no matter how it happens.
Body trembling, Zeika nodded obediently, grabbed the bars, and looked up. She set her jaw as the lift beneath her feet rose, bringing her and the cage up into the light.
She was still blinking off her blindness when she arrived in the warm and dry space, but her other senses told her the insurgents were still aiming. She felt it, the pull in her gut towards their steel.
"Keep your hands on the bars, sweetheart. Or we'll have to plug ya. Okay?"
Her eyes finally adjusted, her lips parting in shock as her gaze touched on all five bodies in Hollow 12. "You're... you're all kids..."
"Oh a bright one, this one is. Franz picked a real ringer," a boy in the corner snickered. A pair of light brown eyes gazed through the tousled red rags of his hair. The apple-shaped face that crowned his lanky frame looked tickled with amusement as he stared at her. He jumped off what looked like a huge communications console and strode over, stretching his hand out to the bars.
"The name's Clementine. Or Greg, if you like it personal." His accent sounded freshly-Aussie
, strangely enough.
Zeika frowned and looked down at his hand. "No. I don't. Not even a little bit."
Greg raised an eyebrow and looked at the guy next to him. "Oi, the little tart's a tad short on manners, ain't she?"
Zeika's eyes widened as she looked at the kid Greg was talking to. Curly dark brown hair, dark eyes... but this time, the eyes were real, not staring out at her from a newspaper clipping. The guy smiled as he walked up to the bars, wrapping his fingers around hers.
"She's never been that great of a people person. Isn't that right? Ezekiel?"
"No..." she stuttered, her insides turning to mush. "Johnny?"
Jonathan Espinoza-Quinn, who hadn't been seen for over two years, was standing in front of her. Except he'd grown a foot or so taller, and a muscle-size or two wider. Not at all the shrimp she'd known five rows back, ten doors down.
"Didn't recognize you at first, but it's a nice look for you." He shot her a winning smile, reaching through to stroke her buzzed head. "Miss me?"
"Ugh!" Greg rolled his eyes and turned to a girl, plump and blonde, who was standing at his left. "Turls, get the newbie out of there before Johnny decides to slip his wanger between the bars."
Zeika looked past Johnny, as much to calm herself as to see who Greg was talking to. "Turls" was still aiming at her, eyeing her warily. She didn't move. "Are we not going to follow protocol?"
Zeika felt the warmth leave her fingers as Johnny let go and stepped back. "Yes. We are." He lifted his chin, leveling his eyes with hers. "Take off your clothes."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Johnny lifted his gun, aiming at her chest. "Clothes. Off. Underwear, too. And pass them through the bars. Keep your hands in clear view. Do it, or we send you back down into the sewer."
Okay. It wasn't as though she'd expected Johnny to propose, but this was a bit much. She looked around, distressed-- a distress that deepened when she saw Turls pull out a pair of medical gloves.
