Killers, Traitors, & Runaways

by Lucas Paynter

  Even if she had helped, Chari knew there’d have been no resolution for it. In the library, there was a challenge to solve, something she could put her mind to that might help them on their way. There was a solution. Even had they found Jean, what solution would there be? Jean didn’t wish to come home.

  * * *

  Zaja left Chari to her studies to roam the manor halls. which over the course of the day had become steadily familiar to her. It was still drafty, and she remained buttoned up tightly to keep her body’s warmth in check. den Vier Manor possessed an air of prestige, and Zaja felt a sense of foreboding and familiarity along with it; whatever power the former occupants had held, it had not been enough to save them. As she wandered the husk of a home, she crossed from the northeastern corner to the northwest, where a door was cracked and a shadow had been cast.

  Cautiously, she pushed the door open. Flynn sat on the bed, Jean’s red leather jacket draped on his knees as he held it in both hands, studying it. He thumbed one of the spikes on the shoulder before glancing up at Zaja as she cautiously entered.

  “Where’d you find that?”

  “Underneath a pile of clothes,” he replied with a nod of his head. “Sleeve was sticking out. Might not have noticed it otherwise.”

  Zaja found the pile Flynn was referring to and knelt to poke through it. Many of the clothes were of a fine cut, although dusty and moth-eaten. Jean’s t-shirt and pants were tangled underneath.

  “And we’re assuming she’s not walking around naked, right?” she joked. Flynn smiled in return, but it was fleeting and hollow. “So what does this mean?”

  “She’s going someplace where there are people, and she needs to blend in. If she avoids direct eye contact, she can probably get along just fine. Whatever Jean thinks she needs, it’s not here, and she left before I could convince her otherwise.”

  Zaja gave a faint affirmation before a garment in the pile caught her eye. With a bit of tugging, out came a beautiful green gown, the tone of which complemented her skin. It was taller than she was, fancier than the day-to-day attire she’d seen the locals wear. She snatched up an old glove and carried it to a standing mirror, wiping it clean; the icy pane chilled her hand. She held the dress up against herself and admired how she might look in it; to walk around outside, feeling the wind against her bare neck, the grass scratching at her legs. The neck plunged dangerously near her modest breasts; back on Oma, such an outfit would have been risqué.

  “You’d look good in it,” Flynn said softly.

  The compliment made her smile, but Zaja lowered the dress in defeat. “Give me a boiling hot day or a death wish, and I could wear it.”

  Flynn set the jacket aside and looked up to meet Zaja’s eyes. “Your condition: It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

  Zaja let the dress crumple to the floor as she reached down and lifted up her shirt to expose her belly—she had learned to be less bashful in the company of friends—revealing the blemishes on her skin; a fifth mark had formed during the last week of travel, albeit one that remained very small. There were others, elsewhere on her body, but she wasn’t keen to share them all.

  “I won’t pretend to self-diagnose the rate of Nyrikon’s Syndrome,” she told him, “But it’s gotten worse since I left home.” She lowered her shirt back down, tucking it. “Don’t worry though; I’m not going anywhere yet.”

  “I’m glad,” he said gently. “It’s selfish, I know, but I’m worried for myself too.” Zaja frowned at that, but let Flynn continue. “Do I … forfeit a little humanity for each friend I lose? After we lost Mack, I took Jean for granted and drove her away. Who do I become if, one day, I’m alone again?”

  She walked up to Flynn and rubbed his arm to comfort him. “I’ve only ever known this you. I’d like to think even when I’m gone, you’ll stay him.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  Zaja abruptly sat beside him, shaking the bed. It was the sort of space she’d have never shared with another person back home, but here she was free from the judgments of her own people. Besides that, her intentions were pure.

  “I heard you met someone this morning,” she said, looking up at him. “A soldier, was it?”

  “Alicea,” he confirmed, then corrected himself. “Shea.”

  “What was she like?”

  “She was—” Flynn hesitated. Zaja stared pleadingly, eager for details. He relented. “Shea was scared and honest in a way I haven’t seen for a long time. Not honest about everything, I think, but honest about herself. I felt normal talking to her; that, too, felt like something I barely remember.”

  “Maybe you should try to see her again,” Zaja suggested.

  “I can’t and I won’t,” he replied. “Even if she wasn’t heading back to war, even if I could see her again if we survive our own mission, like I said: I felt normal with her. Who I really am—that’s someone who needs to stay buried.”

  Zaja wanted to say something to set Flynn at ease, but words failed her. There came a gentle knock on the door, followed by Chari letting herself in.

  “Pardon the intrusion,” she said. “I’d like to borrow Flynn.”

  “You’ve found something,” he said as he stood up.

  “I may have. Be that as it is, I’d prefer discussing my findings further before presenting them to the group.”

  “Not much of a group to keep it from,” Zaja muttered. “With Jean and Mack gone, it’s just three others.”

  “Even … so.” Chari’s expression soured.

  “It’s fine, Chariska,” Flynn interjected. “I’ll take a look, see what you’ve found versus my own senses.” He began to leave, but stopped short to look back. “Thank you, Zaja. For listening, and spending time with me.”

  She smiled back at him, but somehow, it felt like her kindness carried little weight.

  * * *

  Poe swung the axe down once more. It was an ungainly tool, the blade too heavy and the edge too dull to do more than split wood. Even in this it was only adequate, but as the night wind crept in, Zaja would need something better than splintered furniture to stay warm. So he chopped again and again, the memory of the Reahv’li in the tunnel coming distantly to mind.

  Nearby, Zella was still tending their beast of burden, as she had been all day. Its hair had been brushed, the knots untangled and the ends trimmed. She had cleaned its many horns and fed it, and while its odor had been somewhat alleviated, Poe still saw the same ungainly beast that Flynn had handily bartered for several days before. He stripped the gloves from his hands and left the axe aside as he approached her.

  “You waste so much energy on that creature,” he said, louder at first until he came closer. “Whatever our direction, we will invariably cut it loose … or kill it, for its meat and pelt.”

  If Zella was horrified by this comment, she masked it by turning away. “Whatever becomes of Mr. Prim-Prim, he has carried us this far. The least we can give is a little care in return.”

  “Mr.…?” The name sat strange with Poe.

  “Jean named him. Last night,” she quickly clarified, adding, “I didn’t know she would be going.”

  “I have no interest in holding you accountable,” he responded. He considered inquiring about her lack of involvement with the search, but as he had slept the day away, he stayed quiet on the matter. Instead, he simply said, “I do not foresee her returning.”

  “You’re so certain?”

  “Flynn has driven her away. He cannot be the man he needs to be to accomplish his aims, and become the man he seeks to be at the same time,” Poe replied. “He is two separate people, and one would kill the other if given the chance. It is better for Jean that she left; she is spared a worser fate.”

  Zella considered this morosely. She looked to the sky and murmured, “It’s getting dark,” before guiding Mr. Prim-Prim into the stable, where she locked him in for
the night. “If given the choice, you would see Flynn without any companions save yourself.” She looked Poe in the eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “It would be efficient,” he said simply.

  Zella laughed, and for a moment, Poe was not certain why.

  “You two might yet deserve each other. A pair of bold men, traversing the worlds on a quest of godhood and deicide.”

  Insulted, Poe turned away to gather up the firewood. Unexpect-edly, Zella followed and he glared at her with contempt. “At least we have taken action. You were content to remain imprisoned, indecisive of your fate. When asked to sacrifice yourself, you neither complied nor raged against the cruelty. You merely sat.”

  Something inside caused Poe to briefly smile, for he knew he’d struck a nerve. There was still an underlying pleasure to be found in causing harm, even if he couldn’t use his blades as casually as he once had.

  “I seek a happy ending, and see no outcome that allows it,” she replied, her voice dry. “Either I die or my father does—at your hands.”

  “Is your bond with him so loving?” Poe asked as he handed her a narrow log to carry.

  Zella ignored his gesture and knelt, gathering up more than he’d have expected her capable of, paying no mind as it soiled her dress. “My father has little hate in his heart, but for those who are cruel and cause suffering.”

  “Then there are many he hates,” Poe replied. As they began to walk back to the rear entrance of den Vier Manor, he mulled over her words more deeply. “That is no answer.”

  “I felt more love from my father than my mother, and more for him in return,” she said. “But I did not know him until I came of age and, as you might imagine for one tethered as he, worshiped by millions, there was no chance to become close.”

  Poe felt a twinge of sympathy then, for he was never as close to his father as he wanted to be either.

  “How do you feel any love for him at all?”

  “For what he asks me to do?” she replied. “It is because on some level, I believe in his cause. The world is a cruel place of hardship and suffering, but I ask now: Does it have to be? For all the terrible things humankind does, what if the best could be preserved and the worst wiped away? And tell me this, Guardian: When you should find yourself wielding even an aspect of cosmic power, what injustices would you use it to see righted?”

  Poe opened the door and let Zella take the lead, replaying the question again and again. The weight of godhood had been on his mind for some time now, but he had only ever considered the duties as a stalwart sentinel might. There was someone who came to mind, but Zella would not know who he meant, and so Poe changed the name for her convenience. “I would see a world where Jean had not parted from us.”

  * * *

  Shea had visited Brinnegan’s pub several times since the chaos in Selif had finally quieted, but that evening—like every one before it—jarred her as the first. The entrance was like a threshold between worlds, dividing madness and sanity, and seeing so many happy and drunk would have been cause to look back and see if Selif too had mended, before she reminded herself that most here were soldiers indulging in a fleeting respite.

  Were a single table open, she’d have sat alone that night, but taking a free seat at any of them would have meant looking someone in the eye. She opted then for the bar, where those who sat never had to say a word to one another.

  “Give us a full quart, Brinnegan,” she said to the barkeep, who produced a voluminous mug and promptly filled it without a word. It was only when he set it in front of her that he asked, “Will you be opening a tab, soldier?” Shea fished a few burnt coins from her coat and let them hit the table; he snatched them up quietly.

  As Shea drank deeply, the foam bearding around her lips, her neighbor to the left cackled and asked, “Ya fish that change from one of the wrecks in town?”

  The moment her mug settled on the warped bar counter, Shea glanced sidelong at the woman who’d spoken. She hunched on her stool, drinking from a smaller mug, several others empty around her. Her pants were of a fine cut, held up with leather suspenders. The silk shirt she wore seemed to tighten around its wearer’s wrists, and were it not for certain assets she possessed, Shea would have taken her for a man. Mismatched against the rest of her outfit was the red bonnet she wore, tugged low and veiling nearly all of her face in shadow.

  “Last coat caught fire during the raid,” Shea replied simply, then held up a flap of the coat she was wearing to indicate. “New coat. Old coins.” Her neighbor chuckled and took another drink. “Don’t need a hard time,” Shea said, returning to her own mug. “Be marching off to war again soon enough.”

  “If I had to face a shitstorm like the one I hear you’ve got brewin’?” the girl replied. “I’d party harder and louder than all these fuckers.”

  Shea’s temples pulsed at the thought. “Had enough noise, thank you. Be at a quieter pub right now if one still stood.”

  She expected another glib response, but her companion pivoted on her stool to look back at the pub for a moment. “Way everyone else is talkin’, you’d think their lives didn’t mean shit to ’em. Been here a couple hours now, and I keep pickin’ up bits about takin’ the front and goin’ after the can openers or somethin’.”

  “The Cavonish,” Shea corrected.

  “Point bein’,” the girl asked as she leaned back, “if you ain’t in a hurry to die, why still go?”

  Shea thought about what answer she might give. Lost a parent here, maybe two. Mum might never wake up. But she didn’t share that. Brothers are all still fighting on the front. Can’t duck out and let them down. But that reason, too, felt like a lie. Duty. Have to serve my country. She almost laughed out loud at that.

  I don’t know.

  Shea said nothing.

  Her companion scoffed and muttered, “Thought so,” and buried that with a drink. Silence came between them and Shea tried to let the matter go. But it ate at her, and she remembered the day that had passed, visiting den Vier Manor and meeting Flynn, trying to avoid the devastated streets and faces as much as she could until she could safely slink into the pub. She could avoid her troubles for a while, but they always came back.

  “I’d never get to come home. Run, and my whole unit talks about Alicea Bagwell, ducking in a cave somewhere. They’d never understand.”

  “Hmm,” the girl chuckled. “Can’t say I’ve got that problem.”

  “What sort do you have?”

  “Kind that’s bigger than me. Kind I’d be happier to have never stuck my nose into in the first place,” she replied.

  “Same boat,” Shea commented. “And you chastise me for wanting a quiet drink.”

  “Way I see it, your world’s endin’. Mine might just be startin’.”

  “You’ve quit your … war, as it were, then?” Shea asked.

  The bar counter rattled momentarily, mugs briefly dancing. Just as quickly, it stopped, nothing broken or spilled. When Shea looked back at her companion, she was resting her hands in her lap. “Makes me sound like a goddamn coward when you say it that way,” she replied tensely.

  “Thing I’ve found about war,” Shea said. “Unless you’ve started it, it comes for you. Don’t fancy fighting, still run if I could. But look outside: Where would I be safe? You run, would you be?”

  “If the ones still fightin’ it do their jobs?” she asked jokingly. Then she thought about it for a moment and sighed. “Point made.”

  “Maybe,” Shea admitted. “Might just be I figure on dying, want company for the ride.”

  “My odds are worse than yours,” her companion said as she raised her glass.

  “To shitty survival odds,” Shea toasted, and with a clink they emptied their mugs. Her head swam and she knew that she was done for the night, even as her drinking partner signaled Brinnegan for another round. Against her better judgment, Shea
was tempted to continue, though she wasn’t optimistic that alcohol poisoning would save her from the eastbound ship a day and a half away.

  Her companion pivoted back again to survey the pub. Many of the empty seats had been filled, and the roar of Shea’s fellow soldiers was almost too much to bear. She waited for gunshots and splintering flesh to shatter it, but those were sounds that never came.

  “Looking for someone?” she asked, seeking distraction from her thoughts.

  “Just some guy to sucker into paying my tab,” her companion replied. “Might have to get up, put my girlish charms to work.” There was nothing about the way she spoke that sounded remotely seductive, but an ill-timed belch on Shea’s part kept her from pointing it out. “Ya might be right. Even if I run, don’t mean I’m safe. And, honestly? I was never one to shy from a fight.”

  “What are you running from?” Shea asked.

  “Someone who’s bad news. Might have to suck it up and deal with him. Pisses me off to say it, but he’s good at what he does. Hate the hell outta how he does it, though.” The girl turned back and looked directly at Shea for the first time, and between the glaring lamps of the bar and the blur from the alcohol, something seemed off about her appearance. “Yer still goin’ off to war, yeah? Find somethin’ ya want here, some reason to hang on. When yer in the thick of it, when things get crazy? Might just save yer ass.”

  “Right,” Shea muttered distantly, stepping away from the bar. Her gait was unsteady, and if her comrades-in-arms called for her to join them, their invitations fell on deaf ears.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Those Who Follow

  The approach to den Vier Manor conjured distant memories from Shea’s faded childhood, and all the while she wondered if Flynn Carolina and his unseen companions were still squatting inside. It was almost dawn when she fumbled to strike a match while crossing the beaten gates—she hadn’t come with clandestine intent; military service had merely accustomed her to an early rise. Her match never touched the cigarette pursed between her lips, for she saw the front doors, reduced to shambles.