by Tyler Vance
Images flickered across his eyelids, the imagined faces of his birth parents, the hard-eyed Namars, and now Emili, his angel and savior.
The angel had judged him unworthy-
A pair of soft hands wrapped around his shoulders. Sheikoh opened his eyes, blinking away blinding sunlight. Above him was Emili’s silhouette. She pulled him into a rough embrace. Her cheek was wet against his, and Sheikoh suddenly realized that Emili was as well.
After a few heartbeats of confusion, Sheikoh uncertainly returned her embrace. He held her with fragile reverence, as though terrified that she might break in his grip. Emili choked out a strange sound.
“Don’t ever… don’t do that to me,” she mumbled.
Sunlight haloed Emili’s gold-spun hair, and tears dripped down her gentle face. Warmth rose in Sheikoh’s chest.
He stared at Emili curiously, cautiously, and told a piece of absolute truth.
“I would never do anything to hurt you,” he promised.
The words resonated with sincerity, and sudden connection snapped through the walls Sheikoh had unconsciously built around Emili. In that moment, she became more to him than anyone else ever would.
“I know you wouldn’t,” Emili hiccupped, hand dashing over her eyes. “I know.”
Sheikoh took her in, seeing Emili as if for the first time. Her golden hair glowed brighter than a lighthouse and framed her two crystal-blue eyes with perfection. Gentle freckles flitted across her soft skin. Behind her frown, smile dimples lilted her face.
Lightheaded, he mentally framed this perfect picture.
Sheikoh touched her hand, and his chest leapt with a feeling reminiscent of fear. Only, he liked it. A lot, actually.
“Emili, please don’t cry. I’ll never hurt you,” whispered Sheikoh.
“I’m not scared of you, Sheek,” she assured him. She looked up at him with wide, soul-touching eyes. “I’m scared for you.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” Sheikoh murmured soothingly.
He wrapped her in another warm hug. Emili shook him off though. She looked into his face, and her eyes scoured the depths of his being. He stood stalk still under her scrutiny.
“I’m scared, because when you told me that you… that you killed her, you said it in a voice that wasn’t yours. I know this sounds crazy… but it sounded like… like Silence had… had possessed you …” she murmured slowly, working it out as she went.
Sheikoh opened his mouth to answer, to deny her words, but he froze. Then he closed his mouth, thinking. When he’d frozen the center of his being, cut off the emotion stopping him from answering Emili, that’d been exactly how he’d silenced the emotions that hadn’t wanted to let him kill Chain. Sheikoh suddenly realized he wasn’t sure who’d spoken those words.
Silence?
Sheikoh?
Did his two personas exist simultaneously in him, or as two separate entities? One good and the other evil? He focused on a blue-grey squirrel in the distance that pawed through the ground. He strained his thoughts, dissected them and tried to figure out what detail made him, him.
How deep did the roots of a name really stretch? How was he supposed to know where he ended and Silence began?
Was a being dependent upon the judgments of others?
“Sheikoh,” Emili murmured lifting his chin.
His pupils met hers, desperate for the amelioration her tone implied.
“When I heard about what you did… A little eight-year-old hero, who risked his life against Redline, I was, like… I was overwhelmed.”
“Somewhere along the line I had stopped believing in good people, but when I heard what you did… I just knew there was no way I was going to let you die. I dragged Alimiat from his test tubes so we could save you. I was so scared you were gonna die but you didn’t. You lived,” She whispered.
Sheikoh looked on, and hope rose in his chest.
“You’re that boy. A hero,” Emili told him. “My hero. Don’t ever ever ever give up that part of yourself. Not for anything. Ever.”
Her crystal eyes sparked with a wave of feeling.
Sheikoh wanted more than anything to soothe her, to tell the angel before him that he was still that hero, but he wasn’t. He’d become something darker. He would still do anything for Emili, but he couldn’t find it in himself to lie to her. The wounds he’d suffered at Chain’s hands were deeper than skin, muscle, or bone; she’d ripped his former family to bits, torn the veil of innocence from over his eyes. She’d gouged out a piece of his soul, and he’d killed her for it.
He would never play the hero again. He had no desire to pretend to be the protector. Heroes were hollow, cardboard figures that never killed and never died. No real-world person would ever cripple themselves with those stipulations.
Reborn from the ruins of failure, Sheikoh had transcended the limitations of a hero. He was a predator. A murderer. He knew that if anyone were ever to threaten either of the Wrays girls, he would kill again.
And he would do it with a smile.
Emili could see he wasn’t going to fill the pause.
Her face tightened the slightest bit.
“Just don’t forget who you are. No matter how many people call you Silence the assassin or praise you for every crime you’ve ever pulled off, and no matter who sees your metal parts and calls you inhuman, never forget… Your name is Sheikoh… You’ll never grow out of the boy that stood up for what’s right…” Emili had urged him intently before trailing off. Sheikoh had looked back and nodded at her.
“I promise, and I will never stop looking after you until I’ve paid you back everything you’ve given me,” Sheikoh slowly murmured.
Emili’s answering smile made his chest glow.
He was glad he’d been able to twist the truth enough to make her happy. Nonetheless, he would never be able to pay Emili back for everything she’d done for him. Not even if he spent his whole life trying. Not even if he outlasted the world and everyone on it. The gift she’d given him was priceless.
Not his life - that wasn’t worth the air that he breathed.
No, the brilliant, dancing flames that she’d inspired, the hole in his chest she’d filled with yearning, the home she’d opened to him; that was what he had to repay. That was a gift worth everything he could ever become. Anything he could possibly imagine.
His countenance simmered with feeling, and his dark eyes cradled Emili’s intimately, as though whispering the only relevant truth on this green earth;
I love you.
Chapter 12
Sanatous
A beep and vibration in his pocket interrupted his reverie. Sheikoh reached a hand inside his ragged black pants and disentangled his cellpad from everything else in there. He flipped open its dented silversteel cover and read the message ‘Spanius location –Ghost,’ and ‘Be in position by 10:00 to strike at 12:00 –Dream.’ There was an attached downloadable file. Sheikoh thumbed the key for the ‘download now’ option and waited while the blue loading bar crept across the Trinity’s dim screen.
“You can do this little guy,” he muttered with distraction.
As Sheikoh watched the bar he thought about Emili again. His thoughts pressed her beautiful face into the look she wore as she told him; ‘Your name is Sheikoh… You’ll never grow out of the boy that stood up for what’s right…’
He leaned his head back on the vine drenched wall and closed his eyes with a pained expression. He wanted to answer with something like; ‘Sure I’m Sheikoh, Emi, but who is Sheikoh?’ Both of his names, Sheikoh and Silence, were nothing more than words, titles that depended on the occasion. They were both just labels that were independent of his true self. Emili had lumped him into two groups, the parts of him she admired and that parts she didn’t, but Sheikoh knew that there were so many more facets and niches to himself than what could ever be defined by just two words. He was so many different people depending on others around him and whatever feelings gracing his heart. There was hundreds of var
iations of Silence and millions of Sheikohs.
Sheikoh meant the person that Emili wanted him to be. The good guy him. But without her, he didn’t know what ‘good’ meant.
His cellpad beeped again, as if saying ‘Hey! Hey, Sheikoh! I did that download thingy you wanted! Did I do good?’ in robo language, but Sheikoh just stared at its screen without opening the message. This was it. Whatever choice he had existed in the very moment Sheikoh sat in. His brow crinkled as he tried to piece together who he really was and what Emili would have called right.
The way he saw it was he had two options. He could kill the Celestial, the man Randel Spanius. He could shut out any emotion in the matter and let his hands kill the man that he’d never even seen before and offer Dorothi a rare life of peace. If he did that, that was it, his very last job. He’d never have to kill again, or steal or even lie. He could live happily and honestly. Maybe he’d even figure out what Emili wanted from Sheikoh. He might finally understand who Sheikoh really was. Dorothi and Sheikoh could finally live in peace.
Or they could live in pieces. He could refuse the Celestial, who, if he’d been telling him the truth, was obviously the more dangerous of the two Celestial. He could try and take Dorothi and run from the city they’d spent half their young lives to understand. They could live as refugees in some other region or eat by stealing from the poor Daisha farmers and aquatic coast ranchers, always on the lookout for any sign of Celestial.
Sheikoh was already shaking his head, there was no way he could consign Dorothi to that kind of life. Also, Sheikoh was sure that Celestial had some kind of tracking spell, so they’d be totally reliant on the amulet that Dream had given him. Maybe Dream had put some backdoor in the amulet that Sheikoh wore, or maybe he’d even lied and made sure to cast a spell that would destroy the wall but leave Sheikoh unharmed. Or maybe he’d even been telling the truth about it protecting him from all magic, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t put some kind of technological tracking beacon on the thing, so if Sheikoh betrayed Dream the Celestial could just send an army of Century to kill him, deputy badge or no.
All in all, there seemed to be no choice in the matter. Sheikoh stood up and walked out of the serene garden of vines. In a way, he was the same as the plants that were forever reaching skyward. Sheikoh would do whatever he had in him power to pull his young ward and himself from the desperation of the West Side. Sheikoh didn’t know if Emili would approve his reasons for murder. He knew that he was going into the trade she’d been so horrified that he’d gotten into once upon a different time, but he’d promised that he would take care of Dorothi, no matter what. She was his only family left and Sheikoh wouldn’t put the innocent girl through anything he could possibly prevent. Even though his chest felt dizzy and nauseous at the thought of killing another man, a man who’d never touched him or anyone that he’d ever loved, Sheikoh forced himself resolute. He was going to kill the Celestial.
He clicked a key on his cellpad to open the map Ghost had sent him, then pressed open the flat, wooden door of the garden and begun to walk in the direction of the wall. His expression was hard and his dark eyes were icy and focused. His brisk walk was eerily calm; a few people looked at him with a flash of wariness. When one lived in the gang-ridden West Side, the expression of murder was common knowledge, as Sheikoh well knew with a little quiver in his chest. He pushed it away though. There wasn’t anything to feel guilty about, because he only had the one choice.
One more job before he hung up his electroblade. This was it. He vowed to himself determinedly as he walked through the twilight shadows of the last night he’d ever spend on the West Side.
Randel Sanatous’s mansion was an intimidating building. Sheikoh estimated its height at about five stories. He could already see three security cameras mounted on the swirling marble pillars around the patio area alone. There didn’t seem to be any windows, which told him that there was undoubtedly security beneath the borderline palace’s white brick and silversteel overlay. Most menacingly were the dark scars on the building’s bright surface. The walls and front area were intermittently dotted with spidery, death-black pentacles that stood out like tattoos on an angel.
“Honestly, it does make it look a little cooler,” Sheikoh muttered to himself.
Then a hand grabbed his shoulder.
Sheikoh’s eyes widened and his heartbeat stopped. His body was suddenly a blur of blinding speed. Instinct-driven muscles ducked back and grabbed the wrist of whomever had discovered him. He flung the perpetrator’s body over his head, stepping and turning in a move that he’d invented and landed on the assailant, his knee digging into the person’s chest. His hand reached back and flicked out his electroblade. The blade’s edge hummed ominously.
He held it to the man’s throat before realizing that it was the Celestial - Dream.
“I guess… I guess that was what I paid for...” the Celestial gasped.
Sheikoh was on his feet in an instant, and helping the breathless, middle-aged man up.
“What the hell did you do? I know you weren’t here when I checked out the area. Were you invisible or something?” Sheikoh demanded in a terse whisper.
If Celestial could become invisible to someone wearing the amulet then that definitely qualified as game changing information. He was good, but fighting a Celestial blind wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to try.
“I Ghoststepped here…” Dream explained ruefully, rubbing his backside gingerly. Then he picked up on Sheikoh’s train of thought. “Celestial can become invisible though. From what I understand, the amulet cancels any Celestial energy within a certain radius… and Sanatous is marked so he can’t just vanish, he’d have to go through an incantation. It’s doubtful that it will occur to him. You don’t have to worry overmuch.”
“What other little loopholes can you guys wiggle through this amulet?” Sheikoh whispered vehemently. “What if he makes a big flash spell thingy? Can he blind me?! Make me see things that aren’t here? Smell or hear things? You really could’ve mentioned that fact earlier,”
The memory of that flash grenade, just a day earlier, flashed through his thoughts. Dream narrowed his eyes angrily.
“I wore the amulet for a little time as possible. I didn’t spend any time trying to figure it out; I took it off as soon as I was done with it,” Dream shot back.
Then the Celestial’s expression grew introspective. Dream thoughtfully tapped his chin with a finger.
“However... The amulet must be able to protect against illusions… Here...”
The Celestial took four long steps back from where Sheikoh hid. His eyes flared blue
“Can you see me?” Dream asked in an echoing double-voice.
“Yeah,” Sheikoh answered slowly. He suppressed a shiver at the haunting voice.
“Do you see the giant spider?” Dream asked in the same eerie voice.
“No…” Sheikoh replied
“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Dream answered, his voice going back to normal.
Sheikoh turned back towards the building with narrowed calculating eyes. Dream stepped two, clinking steps towards him. Without looking, he could feel a swish of air from the silk, robe-like cloak that the Celestial wore. If this other Celestial wore as much jewelry as Dream, then he wouldn’t have to worry about invisibility. He’d just listen till he hear the sound of a rich, old lady and then shoot it. Sheikoh grinned.
Dream brought him back to the present.
“Even a master thief isn’t going to be able to get through that door,” Dream said, nodding at the flat, mechanized-silversteel gate emblazoned with a black rune. Sheikoh followed the older man’s gaze. The door stood out jarringly against the elegant, historically-inspired building, obviously sacrificing design for security. Dream looked at Sheikoh with a steel gaze. He held out one of Legacy’s silver-blue bandanas. Sheikoh eyed it with distaste.
“Cover your face with this; you won’t want any Celestial to look at the cameras and learn that you were
the one to kill Sanatous, trust me. Walk up to the front door and touch the rune with that amulet. I’ll open the door. Then you’ll run in and kill Sanatous as well as anyone else you meet,” Dream ordered brusquely. “Don’t forget to bring me back that book, the one that I told you about, the one with the amulet indentation in its center.”
Sheikoh nodded back as he wrapped Legacy’s bandana around his mouth and nose. It stood out from his shadowy form like a flare. It’d be pretty ironic someone shot at the bright blue. Sheikoh laughed uneasily to himself. Legacy’s bandana might just be more dangerous to him than one of their ganglords.
He suddenly wondered what Indigo and Ghost were doing now.
“Good luck, Silence,” Dream whispered, nodding at the door.
Sheikoh nodded back and, turning, brazenly loped up to the pillared patio. The cameras were going to see him no matter how sneaky he went at this; there was no point wasting effort. He twiddled his fingers in an airy wave at one of them as he passed, ending at the smooth, silversteel door. He lifted the amulet from his chest up and held it up to silversteel’s the dead center.
The door shot up at the speed of Sheikoh’s blinding right hook. He smoothly darted over the threshold of the opulent living space without a backwards glance.
He just wanted to get this over with.
Sheikoh’s legs carried him swiftly through the dimly-lit opulence of the Celestial’s house with a smooth, cat-like leaping run. Each of his strides took him half way across a room. If anyone had been there to glimpse him, his speed alone would’ve been enough to assure the perceiver that he was something other than average.
The leather grip of his returned ML5 pistol in his right hand and the hilt of his electroblade clenched in his left, Sheikoh blurred through room after room, searching for Sanatous. He darted in and out of each of the doorless passageways that spanned through the mazelike first floor in seconds. He stopped for a moment to listen for any sound of movement with excitement pounding behind his eyes.
His automatonical legs ran towards the winding staircase he’d spied earlier, moving so fast that the dark made him into a wisp of smoke. He launched himself into a ten foot high flip, grabbed the banister, and vaulted over to land on the top of the stairs noiselessly. He propelled himself with another massive leap that took him to a room on the next floor and transferred his force into a rolling crouch. All in less than a second.
