Carl’s eyes widened as my grip tightened. He must have thought once I recognized him I’d loosen my hold. The fact that he wasn’t a stranger made me even more inclined to wrath. I considered killing him and sending his body into the Black Kiss along with my last victim, but I did ease my hold.
“Talk,” I told him.
“Have new,” the boy said, coughing.
“You have my attention,” I replied.
“Had to follow… you.” Carl’s eyes turned back into his head and now I released his throat altogether, allowing him to gain back his breath.
“You are determined for me to choke you to death today, is that it? You ought to know better than follow me. If I need you, I’ll find you.”
Carl continued to retch and cough and rub at his throat. “Thought… you could sense… everyone. Figured you’d know I was here.”
“Obviously I cannot sense the Deitii or I’d be feeding right now. It works only when I’m focusing, only when I’m reaching out. Don’t ever sneak up on me again. Now tell me why you are here.”
Carl sat up and I backed off, hunkering down at his side. “Remember when I told you about that list of Deitiis I have?”
“Yes.”
“You said you could only use some, because you need younger Deitii only.”
“Children,” I said, the word actually tasting good on my tongue.
“I have something better now than that list. I just pocketed a new contract with the Mayor of Moon City. Nobody knows this, but I learned from my guy in the Firecracker forum—”
“How did you get such a connection?” I demanded. Carl was just a boy. That I was suspicious he’d have any liaison with the Firecracker Lady’s black market group should have come as no surprise to him; it was synonymous with Carl telling me he could drink a four-hundred-pound lumberjack under the table—the forum was not a place for most adults, let alone children.
Carl swallowed uneasily. “You aren’t the only one I follow. This rat knows his alleys, knows his sewers. Remember my dad’s in the Commerce Polity. They’re all on the take for the Firecracker Lady.”
I snorted. “It would make sense. I’ll entertain this. Tell me what you have.”
“So nobody but me and the forum knows about this, not even the Firecracker Lady herself, but the mayor owns a camp for refugee Deitii children. The council of Deitii are aware and have secretly endorsed it in the past, but now… with you out on the streets, they are actually paying him to keep them safe.”
“Why have the camp in the first place? They could keep them safe elsewhere.”
“They don’t own anything anymore. Firecracker’s got everything. The lot of them are broke. I can’t even sell crappy product to them anymore because they never have anything but Moon dollars.”
Which aren’t even being printed or distributed electronically anymore.
“Okay, and so the mayor, why would he bother keeping the children on city property?”
“To get good with the Deitii—their voting power is—”
“I know about their vote worth,” I snapped impatiently, “but the mayor is a half-breed Deitii himself. He doesn’t need to persuade them. They always blindly vote for Deitii candidates, even those not of full blood.”
Carl’s eyes narrowed. Despite everything, he actually had the nerve to be brash with me. I reserved my admiration for a moment however. “Look, I don’t know or care why the hell the mayor’s got a refugee camp. That’s not why I’m here to tell you about it. I’m here to make a deal because I know where the camp is and what security he has utilized. All I want is enough to build a house by the Midnight Sea. Everyone else can go to hell.”
“Tell me more.” Saliva built in my mouth and moistened my lips, thinking about how many children the mayor could possibly have.
“He spares no expense to keep them happy. I managed to get a supply job for my contact who the mayor entrusts the camp to. I’m bringing in ten wagons a day loaded with drugs, food, water, and Deitii liquor. The mayor’s paying for all of it out of pocket, plus my courier fees. If you were to pay me more than my current deal, this is all worthwhile.”
“You must really want to retire in the Midnight Sea.”
“You have no idea.”
“So you’ll show me where the camp is?”
Carl nodded but lifted one finger. “But you also need to get rid of the Master of Arms at the gate. He’s my contact and who I made the arrangement through. I don’t want him going back to the mayor and telling him I gave away the location. The mayor doesn’t know who I am, doesn’t want to know, but he will if the Deitiis are taken.”
“Don’t worry about him.”
“I will worry if you leave the Master of Arms alive.”
I smiled at the boy and he nodded slowly, understanding my intent.
“There is something you need to know though.”
“What is your payment?”
Carl was taken aback and stumbled over his words. “I… two… no, six thousand,” he said. “And five hundred,” he added.
“Sixty-five hundred?”
“That’s fair.”
“There’s more to be had, you know,” he told me. “I have more Deitii contacts than just this and what I gave you on the list. Just in case you’re thinking—”
“I won’t kill you, boy. Just stay true to your word. Now what was this other thing you needed to tell me?”
“The Master of Arms is a Grettish Friar, and he has three apprentices onsite with him.”
The Grettish Friars had been entrusted with Christopher Agate’s first trials of combat training during the Emerald Scenario. They were the next best thing to dancing with Agate himself.
“I will pay you ten thousand for this information,” I told Carl.
“Ten?” the boy said with eyes overflowing with disbelief. “Why?”
“Because you’ve made me very happy.” I patted his head and offered my hand to help him up. Carl took my help and we both got to our feet.
“I need the money first,” he said, straightening his back.
“You’ll get it when I give it,” I replied. “You will not follow me. You will wait down the street from City Hall, at Rockslide Road. I will be watching this time.”
The boy studied me, touching his bruised throat. “I wondered if you’d torture me to tell you everything I knew. I planned on that maybe happening, you know.”
“Yes, I know. You’re less impulsive than most adult humans I’ve run across.”
“You are human too.”
I looked at him, deep in the eyes. “Shall we go?”
A light smile touched his lips. “I’ll follow your instructions.”
“Good boy. I will see you in an hour.”
Carl mumbled his consent and I left him there in the shadows. I imagined my floating smile was the brightest thing in the caverns at that particular moment in time.
* * *
I watched his honorable suckwad from across the street. I’d thought many times about ripping his every bone out and driving them all into his eyes, nose, and ass. Considering his past presidency at the Commerce Polity, this was one of the persons who’d ended my once-life, as it were, and it would be nice to afford some special hate on him with my new strengths. But there were more important matters at hand.
The mayor shook the hand of some old bureaucrat and gave him a limp, expressionless smile. It was a shadow of his Deitii heritage.
I thought about eating him. He was half human though. Sucking out the mayor’s spinal fluid would amount to sniffing a weak yellow lager compared to a Deitii child, where a single drop would feel like all the tanks of a large brewery emptying barley-wine not just into your belly, but saturating all fabrics of your past, present, and future. Adult Deitiis were half as potent as their children, but mixed race Deitiis, such as Mayor Twinklepuss up there, were even less.
And I didn’t have to taste a mixed race to know that—I could smell the flaccidity of power in the air across the str
eet from the manor, which was huddled like a coward next to City Hall. The fact he’d put the camp in the regressive cave in the back of the manor’s property made him look as arrogant as a house cat on a golden throne. This was doing nothing to help my abhorrence for him.
I focused on the gated area around the stone manor, which resembled a demented, lopsided human skull. I could not see the Grettish Friars, but I did smell them, especially the Master of Arms. It was a campfire smell, an ocean smell, a blood smell, with back-notes of rose broth. I gripped my knife handle and giggled. Damn, I was ever so excited! This had been such a fun day.
I took another look at the mayor (Turdheart). The other man had left, but I think there may have still been a servant in the house. I couldn’t pick up on that person yet because of how invested I was in the mayor. He’d sat down in his elegant “look how important I am” leather chair, had taken off his loafers and was dragging off his pants.
I asked myself then—would he know? When I came up behind him and made a beautiful incision from his mid-back to the base of his skull, would he know what he did to my life back when he worked for the Commerce Polity?
Probably not.
I had a wife then.
I had a child coming.
Now they were both ashes.
But I don’t dwell on the sad human being I might have been—that would be foolish. Zeus never attempted to be a human. He just fucked them.
Repeatedly.
I moved out into the street, my blood quickening. The Grettish Friars could strike so hard with their galaxy glass scimitars it would take you out of every dimension, all of your variations… gone.
I stopped in the street for a second.
Would I mind that?
Not at all, I hated what life was and—
No.
No, wait. I couldn’t have it more wrong.
In all other possible dimensions, my son had been born. He’d gotten to live. With my newfound sight, I’d glimpsed his different variations. This was the only reality in hundreds of thousands that he’d never been born. I was stuck in a reality where I’d never get to know him. And if I ceased to be, in all other possibilities, he would lose me just as I’d lost him. He was not even ten years of age yet. And he loved me. In every dimension… he loved me.
And I loved him. In my own way. Though I’d never know him in this life. In this reality, I would be made into God, but never a father.
I had to remind myself I was still transitioning. I was not yet the God of all, and I could taste the sharpness of those scimitars at this close distance, their edges intent on cleaving the cloth of space-time-spirit, which was a layer few besides me and several others in the universe had ever seen with our own eyes.
I fell into the shadows at the base of the manor. The clicking of razorroaches in the garden made me smile. Such a prestigious location in Moon City and even the roaches still knew where to find the best filth.
I was on the other side of the manor, but it was clear from the movements of the master he was anxious—he sensed me, although he couldn’t yet place what I was. This was amusing, but I had a mayor to disembowel first, so I moved on through the stone walls, disassociating my molecules. As I reconnected on the other side, I swiftly vomited into a fake plant near a dark corridor. My stomach always lurched when it reconfigured, and the wood polish smell of this place didn’t help. However, that I’d only had to vomit once was a sign I was improving on this skill. Soon I’d be able to ghost my way through unlimited surfaces and depths.
There was no time for self-congratulatory pats on my back though, and I headed from the sweeping stone stairway that led to the study. The mayor had moved into his bedroom. I felt a sudden exhaustion in him. I walked each step without fear, but careful not to arouse the Friars to my whereabouts. I stopped halfway up. I felt the other denizen of the manor in the room with the mayor. I pinched my senses tight and fed upon the image: a luxurious bed, long tan legs, a thatch of blonde public hair, a slight stomach with a wide slit of belly button, two loping breasts with areolas like bright red splashes of paint. The face was made up to look pretty with liberal amounts of product—too liberal for a common woman. This was a prostitute.
Her profession didn’t give me pause. That any woman, or any man, for that matter, was laying naked on the bed of a half-breed Deitii didn’t make sense. Hybrids weren’t born with sex organs. But not only was this woman naked there—I could smell the mayor’s ejaculate trickling down her left leg.
He was human.
Completely.
And like that, I understood. This was the reason for the Deitii children camped here. The Deitii knew the mayor wasn’t really who he claimed to be, but if he cared for their children in a time of terror such as these, they’d keep playing along with the idea he had blood-ties. And they would keep quiet, now that there could be a scandal that may strip them of their extra voting power when the powers that be decided this voting inequality had proven to be easily exploited.
“Vexy,” said the woman to the mayor. “You don’t have to go through that whole chivalry thing. I’m a whore. I can walk.”
The mayor, Vekinsku, a name he obviously chose as a Deitii front, waited on the phone with his finger pointed up in the air and his flaccid human penis pointed to the ground. “Yes, she’ll be waiting curbside in fifteen minutes. Thank you.”
“So soon? I could have done something else too… You were pretty fast and the time’s not up.”
“I’m good,” he told her, ending his call with a sharp stab of the finger. He tossed the cell phone on a gold emblazoned nightstand—the hard rattle showed just how exhausted the man was, and it was only marginally post-coital exhaustion.
“Better get dressed. Taxi is on its way.”
“I appreciate that.” The woman dabbed her thigh with the bed comforter when he wasn’t looking. I decided then I wouldn’t kill her when she came down the stairs. “So,” she continued with a bored lilt to her tone, “you found that Moon City Killer yet? Chewing up a lot of Deitiis, that one.”
“Can you keep your mouth closed?”
“You know I got banned from Firecracker’s circles, so who could I really work for that would make a difference?” She snickered.
I could sense his relief at being able to release some of what bothered him. “Limbus got involved. They’ve sent two people here to help us with the situation. You don’t have to worry about walking the streets at night anymore.”
“I ain’t worried. I ain’t Deitii. But why Limbus? Last time I was here, you told me you hated them.”
I could hardly focus on the conversation now. Two people from Limbus were here. Who was the other? I hadn’t sensed anyone else—shit—I hope whoever it was, he or she went to Rick Agate’s room and found the hydrogen cyanide surprise I left in the incinerator. That would make this nice and efficient.
“Yes,” the mayor droned on, “and there was also that thing about Limbus strong-arming us on trade rights. That caused massive layoffs at the Commerce Polity. People lost jobs. Lives were ruined. I tried to work with Limbus, but they don’t give a damn—their agenda is theirs alone.”
Those bastards… I gripped the banister so hard the dense polished wood buckled under my grip.
“Dicks,” the prostitute commiserated.
“They’ll get a present from me. If this mercenary and program manager they sent happen to survive the killer and finish the job, they won’t be surviving my people. That’ll be the gift I send back to Limbus for all their trouble.”
“You’re hardcore,” she laughed.
“No,” he said thoughtfully. “They know they deserved it. I don’t even believe they’d retaliate.”
I let go of the banister. Like hell I’d let Moon City take the remaining Limbus crony. If they were responsible for me losing my job—and Angelica—and the son I’d never know in this life, the vengeance was mine. This whole time I thought it was only the corrupt Commerce Polity, but it went deeper. Limbus didn’t make my l
over overdose of brain diamonds, but she wouldn’t have, had she known about the baby. After I lost my job, we had nothing. And Angelica embraced it, rather than fighting through it with me.
I went back through the wall. My stomach went sour, but I didn’t throw-up. I did, however, taste blood.
The blood of Rick Agate.
The flavor returned to my senses, despite never laying my taste buds on it.
I associated the taste with Limbus, Inc.
It would be the taste in my mouth when I killed the next Limbus tool. I would rip that person’s muscles off the bone and watch them scream.
For now though…
I clenched my fists and two thigh-high boulders shattered next to me in response.
… I would find my meals.
The Grettish Friars had unsheathed their scimitars and awaited my arrival with cold clarity. They sensed me and were excited. I wouldn’t disappoint.
* * *
I slowly made my way into the recessed cavern area behind the manor. The large supply truck that Carl had told me about sat parked outside the gate. The Master of Arms would have the keys for tonight. Normally, he would drive to the outskirts of Moon Forge Valley to meet with Carl and load fresh supplies—tonight, however, was different. The supply truck wouldn’t be leaving here empty; it would be leaving full of those who had once enjoyed the supplies.
Collecting all these Deitii children, sedate and high on brain diamonds, would be of little consequence. I could drive them out to my shack on the other side of Black Kiss Falls and harvest them, one by one. That would be the fun part to all of this.
I moved stealthily into the clearing of boulders outside the barbed wired, chain-link gate, which was wide open.
Of course it was.
The children didn’t want out, and most passersby would not want in—not when laying eyes on the three figures approaching with five-foot-long scimitars with the finest galaxy glass for blades. I could see the stars, planets, and micro-cosmoses swirling through them as the Friars locked onto my position.
My knife, gripped firmly in hand, lengthened in response, my mind trying to protectively compensate for the weapons I faced. The Master of Arms took the centermost position. Each of the Grettish Friars stood over seven feet tall, but the master looked to be a full head taller than the others. The mass of these aliens was nothing sort of terrifying in its capacity for intimidation; they looked to be a ton in pure muscle weight, as evidenced by the broad rhinoceros shoulders and hulking arms. Their enormous bodies were mostly obscured by burnt trench coats, which seemed to hover over them, just above their black army boots. Glowing gray eyes peered out of the darkness under torn, rough fabric fedora hats. The only facial feature observable was the red-fleshed tip of their sharp noses that slightly pushed out of the void-like darkness that was their face.
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