by Jon Skovron
“Oh, I like it when he does this,” Moxy whispered to Nettles as they watched from the cover of a nearby wagon.
The sentry seemed frozen in place, his entire body quivering as he lay on the ground, his fearful eyes following Hatbox’s every move.
“See, they can’t move, but they can still see and feel everything,” Moxy told Nettles.
Hatbox crouched down and gazed at the man, as if deciding what to do next.
“I used to think it was just the pins. You know, like he knew some special place to put them,” said Moxy Poxy. “And I guess that’s partly true. But to reliably get the effect he wants, he also coats his pins in a poison of his own making. Not deadly poison, mind you. Just to keep ’em still. Mister H, he don’t like fuss.”
Little noises escaped the man’s throat, but he couldn’t seem to cry out as Mister Hatbox stood back up, then slowly, deliberately pressed his foot down on the man’s windpipe until he grew still.
Moxy Poxy tapped her nose and winked at Nettles. “Pleasure to see a true craftsman at work, ain’t it?”
Nettles was beginning to question her choice of crew. It seemed they’d actually gotten worse in the year or so she’d been away. She was trying to stop her sadist brother from taking the Circle. Using other sadists to do so didn’t seem the right way to go about it. She knew Hope wouldn’t approve, and that bothered her more than she expected.
As they got closer to Sharn’s headquarters, the sentries were placed more frequently and in twos or threes. For one pair, Mister Hatbox simply began walking toward them. The combination of his bland expression, his perfectly tailored suit, and the silent wraithlike quality of his movements gave the two sentries just enough pause to allow Moxy and Nettles to strike from the sides. One threesome was huddled so close together in an alley that Moxy Poxy was able to drop down from the roof and take them all out at once.
“These gafs are barely paying attention,” Moxy said as she clipped a finger from each of them.
“The complacency of success, perhaps,” said Mister Hatbox. “Let it be a lesson for us.”
“You got that right, Mister H,” said Moxy as she shoved the bloody fingers into a leather pouch at her waist.
“What do you do with those anyway?” asked Nettles.
“Well, first I dry ’em and cure ’em so they don’t rot. Then I make stuff with ’em.”
“Make stuff?”
“Sculptures and jewelry, mostly. I’ve got the soul of an artist, you know. Should’ve been born in Silverback.”
“I’ve seen some of her pieces,” said Mister Hatbox. “Quite exquisite.”
“And they each hold their own special memories,” said Moxy. “No two kills exactly alike, you know.”
Nettles recalled telling Palla he didn’t want to know about the trophies. She’d heard about the finger thing, but hadn’t realized how involved it was. How… wrong it was. And she had a feeling that it only went deeper with these two. Bringing them along had definitely been a mistake. It was too late for tonight, but when they were all safely back in Paradise Circle with the cache of guns, she would tell those two their services were no longer needed. She hoped they didn’t hold a grudge and went gracefully. As twisted as they might be, killing members of your crew just because you didn’t like the way they do things was not looked on favorably in the Circle.
They continued to work their way to Sharn’s headquarters, leaving a trail of grotesque and mutilated corpses in their wake. Nettles prided herself on her strong stomach, but by the time they reached the mill, she felt a little sick.
Palla and his crew were already waiting, as were Gavish Gray and his group. Henny and his group came soon after.
“No guards out front,” Nettles observed.
“Why would she spread her crew out so thin and not even have someone at the door?” asked Henny. “It don’t make sense.”
“Neither does making an alliance with biomancers, but that’s what she did,” said Palla.
They distributed the rifles and revolvers that they’d picked up along the way.
“We just going to break down the door?” asked Gavish.
“I should be able to open it a bit more quietly,” said Mister Hatbox.
Nettles was unnerved to learn that he was nearly as good at picking locks as Red. Something about a man like that being able to get past any locked door didn’t sit right with her.
Once the door was open, they encountered little resistance inside. There were one or two gafs that they gunned down on sight. A few others managed to barricade themselves in the kitchen. Built Slim was preparing a small explosive device at the door to blow it up when Sharn came down the staircase, taking the steps two at a time.
“Enough!” she called.
Gavish instinctively turned his gun on her, but Nettles knocked it aside.
“Mind your manners,” she growled. “We’re guests here.”
Palla gave Nettles a quick nod of thanks, then stepped forward, his spear held loosely in both hands.
“Sharn.”
“Palla.” She didn’t look surprised. “I reckoned this is my judgment. Always hoped it’d be you. Sig can be insufferably smug. I trust you’ll let the rest of my people go free if I cooperate?”
“I’ll even offer them a place in my crew,” said Palla.
“That’s sunny of you, and I appreciate it. They ain’t done nothing wrong. It was all me. Now, how do you want to do this?”
Palla held out his spear. “I intend to earn it. Single combat.”
“Sporting of you. Coulda just gunned me down.” She pulled two thin short swords from the sheaths on her back.
“But before we begin, I must know why.”
She smiled sadly. “Why what?”
“Why did you work with the biomancers?”
“They offered guns to help me take the neighborhood if I stayed out of the thing with Drem. I said no. So then they took my sister. They said they wouldn’t kill her if I stayed out of the thing with Drem. But I also had to give them a person each month for their experiments.” A bitter grin stretched across her thin mouth.
“Did they keep their word?” asked Palla.
Her grin drained away. “I suppose they did. They still gave me the guns. And they did give my sister back. Alive, even.” She shook her head and the grin returned. “But they’d somehow… removed all her bones and skin, see. She was just a bunch of innards held together with veins and nerves and stringy bits of muscle, floating in some kind of fluid inside a big glass case that they wheeled into the house. You could see her heart and lungs still working. Her eyes followed you as you moved. They told me how to make a solution I could put in the water that would act like food. They said she could live a full lifetime like that.”
She stared down at her thin swords for a moment.
“I decided that wasn’t any kind of life, so I stuck my sword right through her heart, and I told them we were through. They said they’d take people with or without my help.”
“That’s why you had so many sentries spread so thin,” said Nettles. “You weren’t using them to protect yourself. You were protecting your people.”
Sharn looked at her for a moment, then back at Palla. “Joining with the Circle gafs again?”
“Times are changing,” he said.
“There’s bad things on the horizon, Sharn,” said Nettles. “Things that make neighborhood rivalries look petty. Believe me when I tell you, the biomancers are just getting started.”
“Like as not, I won’t live to see it,” said Sharn. “Come on, Palla. Let’s get to it.”
“I take no pleasure in this,” Palla said quietly. “Especially after learning the details. But the justice of the Hammer must be served.”
Sharn was quicker than Nettles expected from a wrink. She came in so quick with both swords overhead, Palla barely had time to block her. Despite what she’d said about not living, she seemed determined to fight. And she did get a respectable number of strikes past Palla’
s guard. But after a few minutes, it was clear she was no match for him. The wood of his spear was supple enough that he could snap it around like a switch, but it delivered enough force to break one of her arms and send one sword clattering to the ground. It was a real honor to watch the man work. A combination of elegance and power that was rare. He spun it. He pivoted his body around it. Sometimes he ducked under it. It was as if he and his spear were partners in a dance. The only person Nettles had ever seen that connected to a weapon was Hope with that sword of hers.
When Palla delivered his final blow, it was a straight thrust that struck with enough force to send the spearhead cleanly through Sharn’s body to emerge a foot out of her back. She clutched at the shaft in her chest and shuddered. Then she collapsed and slowly slid from the spear and onto the ground.
Every true wag in the room stood silent and respectful for a moment. There was strength in this death. Nobility. Nettles decided that when it was her time, she wanted it to be like this. Clean, brave, and at the hand of someone she respected.
The sun was just beginning to rise over the building tops as Nettles and her crew made their way back to Paradise Circle lugging sailcloth rolls packed with enough guns and ammunition for a battalion of imps.
“First victory, Nettie,” said Henny. “How you feeling?”
“Sunny.” She glanced over at Mister Hatbox and Moxy Poxy. “Probably a few adjustments to make before our next big step, but all in all, it went about like I figured.”
“I think you’re it, Nettie,” said Brimmer. “A proper ganglord who looks after the Circle.”
“Thanks, Brim.”
“Me, too,” Stin said. “I was already going to say that. Just hadn’t got it out yet.”
Nettles grinned. “I figured. Now, let’s hurry on. I won’t be able to really celebrate and count this as a win until these guns are safely stowed at the manor.”
“You think Filler’s going to be jealous?” asked Henny.
“I felt bad leaving him behind, but there was no help for it. That leg of his would have been heard before we even reached Hammer Point. Maybe if I give him first pick of guns, that’ll make him feel a little better.”
“I reckon it will,” said Henny.
At night, Apple Grove Manor had a dark, brooding air. But in the gentle morning light of Paradise Circle, you could see hints of its past grandeur. Two columns framed the front entrance and supported the second-floor balcony. Either side of the building was fringed with a strip of mud and weeds that had once been a garden. Above the second floor, the manor stretched to a third floor that was only half the width of the lower two floors. A stone seal jutted from each corner of the roof, mouth pulled back in a snarl to reveal fearsome teeth. An argument could be made that despite its age, or perhaps because of it, Apple Grove Manor was the finest building in the Circle. At least, Nettles always thought so. But that morning, her image of the manor was marred forever.
Filler was stretched between the two front columns with a length of thick chain. He was covered in gashes, bruises, and dried blood. His metal leg was gone and his damaged leg was at a strange angle. Parts of his hair had been burned away, revealing spots of black, singed scalp. And there was a slice in his lower abdomen that was puckered, leaking blood and what was almost certainly semen.
Perhaps it was a blessing that he was dead.
“Oh God,” said Henny in little more than a whisper. “Oh God, Filler…”
Nettles stared up at the naked, abused corpse of one of her best wags in the world. She felt something within herself… give up.
She’d been fighting so hard and for so long, she’d almost forgotten why she’d taken the name Nettles. She’d been born with the name Rose. And as soon as her personality began to assert itself, nicknamed Briar Rose. Pretty, but don’t touch. That’s how her mother introduced her to Jix the Lift. When she got a little older, her father made the mistake of trying to touch her. He ended up with a fork in his thigh, mere inches from his cock. Thereafter, he confined himself to safer activities, like beating up her mother and collecting debts for Jix.
“Get him down,” she said quietly.
Henny and the Twins hurried over to the columns and started working the chains loose. Nettles watched as they laid Filler’s body gently on the front steps. It was stupid, really, them being careful like that. Like he could feel how they handled him. Filler couldn’t feel anything anymore.
Nettles hadn’t felt much when she’d watched her father get beaten to death at the dock riots. He’d been in the wrong, after all. He and the rest of Jix’s boots had been trying to collect on an unfair “tax.” The dockhands were already poor enough and they’d finally gotten tired of it. So they fought back. Perfectly reasonable. Then Nettles’s mother had gotten caught up in it. She’d been trying to get everyone to calm down and work together, like always. But it had been too late for that. So instead, she had been swallowed up by the dark rage that every true wag of the Circle knew as a constant companion. As Nettles watched someone kick her mom’s head in, she had wanted to cry. But to her surprise, she found she couldn’t. She’d wondered if it was because she’d refused to cry for her father. Mick, on the other hand, had cried for hours.
She had taken the name Nettles years later, when she started working at the Slice of Heaven. It was the closest thing she’d ever had to a nurturing environment, and she never wanted to leave. So when Mo informed her that she would need to refine some of her sharpest barbs if she wanted to remain working there, she decided to reinvent herself. Nettles were still prickly, but not as painful as briars. And she’d really thought that if she took a new name and started acting differently, she would become a different person. Maybe not right away, but eventually. She’d even thought she had changed while she was sailing with Hope.
But the Circle had wasted no time in reminding her of who she truly was. And she was so tired of fighting against it. Of trying to be the person everyone wanted her to be. Hope, Red, Mo, all of them. But people couldn’t really change. They always came back around, worse than before.
She knelt down next to Filler’s body. She touched his bruised and lacerated face. He’d never been particularly handsome, but he had one of those faces you just felt you could depend on. Good old reliable Filler. Never made a fuss. Willing to come when you needed him, stayed behind when you didn’t. Did he die because she’d left him behind?
No, of course not. She’d left him behind to protect him. If she held any of the blame for this, it was in not killing that cunt-dropping of a brother when she’d had the chance. A mistake that she fully planned to correct. Because there could be only one response to an injustice of this magnitude. And it was not something she could ever come back from. Nor did she want to. She was done running away from who she was.
“Bring him inside, clean him up, and put some clothes on him.”
As her crew hurried to comply, she turned to Moxy Poxy and Mister Hatbox. “You two. With me.”
Moxy Poxy and Mister Hatbox exchanged a grave look, then hurried after her as she walked past Filler’s body and into the manor.
18
Even with Sunset Point in view, it was hours before the carriage train reached the front gates of Empress Pysetcha’s “secluded” home. By then, a proper princely welcome had been set. Leston’s carriage took the lead and crossed under the tall, decorative wooden arch and into the courtyard. As they trundled slowly down the sandy path toward the house, Red gazed at the small army of servants that had been assembled on either side, all standing smartly at attention as the carriage passed. A small band stood off to one side, composed of a drummer, a trumpet player, and a small chorus. They performed a triumphant hymn as though the prince was a conquering hero returned home from battle.
“Quite a welcome, my wag,” Red told Leston.
“It’s a bit much, I suppose,” he said sheepishly.
The path ended at the raised wooden deck that wrapped around the house. A woman in a pale lavender gown stood on t
he deck awaiting them. She was older, perhaps in her fifties, but with a regal beauty Red had never seen matched, even at the palace. Her long brown and gray hair was blown by the hard ocean winds as she watched them draw near.
“I take it that’s your mom,” Red said to Leston.
He just smiled and nodded, his eyes fixed on her.
“The radiance of Empress Pysetcha outstrips any at the palace,” Nea said.
“I’m very much looking forward to you meeting her,” said Leston.
“Hey, what about me?” asked Red, feigning hurt.
Leston gave him a wry smile. “I think ‘deeply concerned’ would be more accurate for you. My mother is a sweet and thoughtful woman, not accustomed to your often irreverent and lewd remarks.”
Red grinned. “I swear I will talk to her as if she were my own mother.”
“Wasn’t your mother a counterculture bohemian painter and drug addict who married a whore?”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t talk about sex, art, or drugs?” asked Red. “I’ll try, but it doesn’t leave much left for interesting conversation, does it?”
Leston sighed. “In all seriousness, please do try to behave yourself for once.”
“Don’t worry, Your Highness, I will make certain Lord Pastinas is well behaved,” said Nea.
“Oh?” asked Red. “And how do you plan to do that?”
“Perhaps you did not know this, but the tips of my shoes are reinforced with steel. If you say something inappropriate, I will subtly kick you in your shin.”
“But, Ambassador, that would hurt!” said Red.
She smiled impudently. “So behave, friend Red.”
Once the prince’s carriage reached the end of the path, the rattle of wheels slowly faded away as the entire train came to a stop.
