Rooks and Romanticide

by J. I. Radke

  The wide beautiful bed creaked under the man’s weight, and Cain’s bitter acuity gave way to a vast and hopeless wasteland of despair. A cold black wave of it crashed into him as if it had just been waiting for the right trigger to elicit its presence, cresting and crashing around in the back of his soul.

  Cain climbed up on the bed among the scarlet pillows, which only scattered when the gentleman dragged him down from the headboard by the ankle. The silence was strangling. Cain tried to hold his breath and maybe die of asphyxiation, but he was too chicken not to breathe when his chest felt it would burst. The man popped the buttons on his shabby shirt, and there they went, the last lingering rebellious shreds of dignity and attachment, snapping away.

  The sex wasn’t really the bad part, other than the way his insides felt bruised. It was more the shame and repulsion and self-hatred for giving up.

  Giving up.

  The gentleman dressed when he was done and would not meet Cain’s eyes—as if it had been Cain’s fault he’d succumbed to rampant sin. If there was any other sort of arbitrary thought exchanged between the conqueror and the conquered, Cain ignored it, because the way the lamplight bounced and swelled in the corner was more interesting to him. He didn’t even care to get more decent than yanking up his breeches again.

  One of Father Kelvin’s men poked his head into the room after the gentleman made his leave. Cain recognized this one from Lovers’ Lane, with Oberon. The fellow looked around, seemed satisfied, then said, “Up, little boy blue. Get up. Make the room presentable. Your next client is coming in an hour.”

  CAIN HADN’T been sure how to measure the passing of time. All he knew was that life Before was over and this was life Now.

  When he slept, images of his parents in Lovers’ Lane and the last glimpses of the chaotic manor haunted him.

  More times than he’d readily admit, he climbed into bed with Andrej, and pretended Andrej’s dozing heat was the big German hound’s. Now and again he woke up accidentally curling his toes into Andrej’s calves, and Andrej laughed at him and told him to let the dream fairies kiss him back to sleep.

  Cain was listless with the subdued shock, the repressed grief. He was numb, but cold with repulsion. Gradually the routine became familiar. Get up in what never felt like morning, wash off, get dressed, eat breakfast, and smile and laugh with the others like they weren’t all off to sell their souls in fragile little bits and pieces, meet in the underground chapel to pray to the Lord and the Virgin and kiss the little wooden Christ on Father Kelvin’s rosary. And then it was time to work.

  Cain worked with the same passion that he’d played and learned back at home when life had been simple, because there was a time and place for hating himself and the laughing stock they called God and for letting the bad feelings take over. Work was not that time and place. That was late at night in bed when his body ached and his mouth was dry, and whatever was left of the pride from Before splintered and fell.

  Cain kept the rooms assigned to him nice and clean. He always welcomed his clients graciously, waiting among red pillows and taffeta coverlets, smiling inviting smiles and greeting them like he wasn’t imagining some untimely and atrocious death for them as they dived in for kisses.

  There were many ways to say it.

  He fucked. He bedded. He “played backgammon” and gave “lip.” Sometimes his Brothers called the clients Corinthians, and a few of them called Cain a toff, which he didn’t take as an insult at all. He’d rather be considered a snob than a gutter rat.

  “The Little Prince,” Father Kelvin advertised.

  No client had ever looked him in the face long enough to ask why his eyes were not blue or brown or green like the other boys’, or recognize it as the trademark defect that had once been such popular gossip in drawing rooms and salons. The Brothers didn’t ask either, but it was more out of fear of Cain’s icy glances than disinterest.

  If clients wanted him to scream, Cain screamed. If they liked it when he begged and cried for mercy, he obeyed. If they wanted him to recite poetry, why, he most certainly did, and if they liked it when he laughed, he laughed sweetly, because they couldn’t read his mind. They’d never know he was laughing at them and how pathetic they all were, men and women paying so much money just to exercise their filthy weaknesses without being judged.

  Father Kelvin’s ladies, who were older than Cain but younger than his mother had been, loved it when he visited their side of the maze under St. Mikael’s, which was usually on what never felt like Sundays. They braided each other’s hair and giggled when Andrej nuzzled their shoulders and necks, and they played with the young boys and winked at the older ones like they all shared some great secret. Sometimes they’d even read stories aloud and played music like they did for their clients.

  Some regulars brought Cain candy and treats. He shared those presents with the Brothers in his room.

  Mordecai disappeared at some point.

  The whispers through the cold candlelit chambers said he’d been murdered by a client.

  Cain hadn’t even connected enough to feel fear.

  And when it all got too much, which now and again it did, Cain sought out Oberon and offered his most lamenting of frowns. Oberon usually gave in almost immediately. He brought out the cigarettes rolled with opium and hashish, the morphine, the little flasks of brandy. All of it, anything to make the feelings die, because feelings were dangerous, and threatened to debilitate the instinct that got Cain by.

  Once or twice, but only once or twice, Cain had wondered if Before had just been one great morphine dream, head rolling on his shoulders as a regular client left love bites along his hips.

  There was a tier system of sorts, which Cain learned soon enough, like he learned soon enough that work was work and dissociation was an art he needed to perfect. There were cruel tortures masquerading as discipline for those who tried to shake loose of Father Kelvin and the crushing of the soul and the dignity that in hindsight would appear as indoctrination.

  Cain found himself at the top of the class, which didn’t seem surprising in the least.

  “You’re good in bed,” Father Kelvin had said, during a routine evaluation of his “circus” workers. “That’s all I ever hear of you—you’re good in bed and most of your clients wish to book you again and again.”

  Whether he had a right to be proud of himself, Cain had never been able to tell. The pride still carried shame on its back, because why would anyone want to be proud of the things they did for Father Kelvin’s factory of sin and lies?

  They trained him for one circus, with Oberon, who seemed to be in charge of many aspects of Father Kelvin’s operation. But Cain never traveled. Apparently he was too good. Father Kelvin wanted him always under his thumb, never too far away, forever close enough to pull onto his lap like Cain wasn’t fifteen, going on sixteen, and quite aware now of monsters parading as men.

  He was The Little Prince, anyway, and when he came out to dance, the men and women in the masked audience always clapped and cheered.

  Surely he was the only real nobility there, and he was the first choice for some clients, his regulars. He was one of Father Kelvin’s favorites.

  A few times, even Oberon stopped by, slithering into the red sheets with him and letting Cain run his fingers through that dark and stubborn hair as Oberon surrendered to the unspeakable lust.

  Cain knew that he was higher than the dirty-nosed boys and girls there because their families were destitute. He was higher even than the ones who had been kidnapped, or orphaned, or recruited, or the common-class ones who did what they had to.

  He was The Little Prince.

  He was Cain Dietrich, he was good in bed, and he was alive.

  Six months, a year…? He was clueless as to how long he’d been there, in the clutches of Father Kelvin and his palace of pleasure.

  Eventually there was nothing else to learn and even the sin and the seduction grew colorless, nondescript. He wanted to see the sun again. That was what
he dreamed of, not nightmarish memories or hellish trauma, the sacrifice of innocence in a red-themed bed with roaring lion faces carved into the headboard.

  There were no real answers to be found under St. Mikael’s. Cain had come to dismal understandings. He’d given up on fighting before; now he’d given up on giving in. He had some questions, and he was ready to start finding answers.

  FOR ONE, How did a boy escape Father Kelvin’s?

  Cain found the answer one morning in what really hadn’t felt like late March.

  Gunshots ripped through the pretty gilded charade of Father Kelvin’s underground gentlemen’s club, but they were not aimed at anyone. It was quite unfortunate for the angel faces in the coffered ceiling, which took the bullets without much resistance.

  Boys and girls and young men and pretty ladies in muslin tea gowns had scattered, taking shelter in red velvet rooms. Voices rose, coarse and roaring.

  There was an argument between Father Kelvin and Wolfe, one of the men who had been with Oberon so long ago in Lovers’ Lane.

  Cain sat in Father Kelvin’s office, on the scrolled daybed in the corner of the room. He’d been called to the office for something or another, when Wolfe had started ranting and raving in the hallways, yelling about how the city authorities were snub-nosed bastards and someone had lost the assignment book and clients were waiting but they didn’t know who went to what room anymore, and about how Kelvin was a worthless, brainless piece of shit.

  In the office, Father Kelvin had heaved a defeated sigh and patted Cain’s shoulder, saying, “I’ll be back momentarily, malysh.”

  They’d yelled about the bust that had happened in Yekaterinburg, that barren, grungy city northeast of New London. Cain had waited, in boredom. Father Kelvin’s voice echoed, grossly placating and very passive aggressive. More gunshots had ripped through the hush. He’d jumped. There was more yelling, interspersed with bouts of that coarse and guttural language they all spoke there. Malysh.

  Cain wasn’t sure what compelled him, but he made his way to Kelvin’s desk and started going through the drawers.

  What was he looking for? A snack, perhaps. Something better than what they were rationed. Or money. Or secrets. Or a gun. A blade. A letter opener would do. He wanted to feel protected.

  He’d found his father’s rings, and that was when the apathy shattered.

  There was more incoherent yelling outside the office, and some thuds and sounds of violence. The Dietrich in Cain’s blood had never actually been corroded, and in a moment of tragic clarity, it reawakened.

  Cain grabbed his father’s rings.

  He didn’t even take the chance to peek around the corners outside Kelvin’s office to see if the coast was clear—that would have wasted too much vital time. Wolfe and Father Kelvin were fighting, and probably with many others now. This was an opportunity he’d never see again. Nobody was paying heed to the circus workers. Nobody would see him. This was his chance. Instinct hissed in the back of his mind: Now. Now. Now!

  Cain sped out of the office and down the winding halls. Pieces of ceiling that had been broken by bullets scraped at his bare toes. He almost tripped on a painting thrown from the wall. There were shouts, slamming doors, the echo of someone’s infuriated howl, and voices from a room some of Father Kelvin’s ladies had fearfully closed themselves into. Cain’s breath ripped in and out of his chest, hot with urgency, and his feet pounded on the floor as he ran from Father Kelvin’s.

  Out of the labyrinth of halls, down the dim corridor to the stairs, and up into the secret hall behind the sanctuary.

  Out, out of the church, the cobblestones biting at his feet as he ran through New London. The sunlight was blinding. It made the world blurry with tears. It hurt his head. The fresh air made his lungs feel new again.

  Did he look lost? Did he look starved? Did he look abused? Did he look mad? Did someone on the streets reach out and try to stop him, suspicion and goodwill piqued by the obvious shades of wrong? If they did, he hadn’t noticed.

  Cain didn’t stop until he was outside the gates of the Dietrich manor. He didn’t even remember the surroundings he’d passed on his way, navigating the streets intuitively, and as the guards rushed to open the wrought iron gates in shock, Cain opened up his hand and found that he’d clutched his father’s rings so tight, they’d left deep imprints in the skin of his palm and fingers.

  He was Cain Dietrich, he was sixteen by then, surely, and he was an orphan. He was good in bed, he was alive, and in March of 1887, he was home again.

  SCENE TWO

  “TAKING YOUR coffee in the garden, I see.”

  Levi looked over his shoulder, all bundled up in fleece and a fur collar.

  His father stood behind him, smiling small but cheerily. His graying hair fell loose about gentle, liver-spotted jowls. He had his walking stick, clutched in old fingers that trembled this morning. His many jewels and rings looked as if they might cut off his circulation. His breath hung on the air, as his son’s did, and Levi licked the taste of coffee off his lips and offered a polite smile. He really didn’t feel like talking; he hadn’t felt like talking to anyone for days now. But he’d known it was only going to be a matter of time before his father approached him, ready to ask questions again after so long.

  “Dobroye utro,” Levi murmured. Good morning. “I’m sorry, did you want me at the table for breakfast?”

  His father waved a hand dismissively as he moved up the flagstone steps to the patio. Levi reached over to pull the chair out for him, but his father swatted his hand away, frowning. He eased down into the chair with a loud sigh. Crow’s feet branched from his eyes.

  Levi frowned again, deeply. He lifted his coffee to his lips and glanced away, because he didn’t like seeing his father on the days he seemed to feel his oldest.

  There was a small silence, comfortable. Neither required much conversation, anyway. They were very alike each other in that way. Morning fog rolled along the Ruslaniv grounds, and the orchards and trees were gray in the pale light. Birds chirped somewhere, hesitantly.

  “You haven’t been out all night lately,” his father declared. He took some fresh fruit from Levi’s breakfast plate. Levi smiled faintly, pushing the dish over to his father.

  “I haven’t,” he confirmed.

  “Not even with BLACK?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve been going out by yourself quite often, anyway, I’ve heard.”

  Levi shrugged listlessly. “I have….”

  “My son, the romantic.”

  Even his father’s chuckle commanded respect. Levi let him make his assumptions. From the few fountains, birds scattered.

  My son, the romantic…. Levi’s smile softened just a bit. His lashes lowered on clouded eyes. His father always spoke as though Quinton had never existed—or, at least, wasn’t his blood son. But Quinton had been much older, almost thirteen when Levi had been born, and he’d left with the other senior members of BLACK. Nobody had heard from him since.

  Levi frowned around his coffee. Besides, Quinton had never acted like a son. Or a brother.

  Levi, the romantic. Quinton, the monster. Maybe he was dead somewhere, banished from New London.

  “How are you feeling today, Father?”

  His father skirted the question easily. “Do you remember what I told you when I designated you as the new leader of BLACK? That I was confident in your being levelheaded? You are, Lawrence. That’s what’s good about a fighter being a romantic at heart.”

  It was meant to be a compliment, surely, but it stung him, just as it stung him to hear his first name fall from his father’s mouth. He was so accustomed to being called by his second name. In fact he felt sometimes he didn’t even know who Lawrence was supposed to be. “Father—”

  “The Dietrichs have been digging around in documents and records related to St. Mikael’s.”

  Father’s eyes met son’s over the table as these words sank in like claws.

  “I’m still a little a
ngry about the incident in October,” his father eventually went on, meaning the gunfight at the Dietrich masquerade, “but I think you’ll be able to persuade the others to honor the gravity of the situation. This isn’t a game, Lawrence. BLACK is not separate from me, and I’ve made sure of that by making you leader. Remember that you may be such, but you still answer to me.”

  “What exactly are you getting at, prefacing with such a lecture?” Levi propped an elbow on the table, cradling his temple in his hand. My son, the romantic…. “I told you, our little joke at the All Hallows masque was pointless and ridiculous, and I’ve already taken all the blame for even letting Eliott talk me into it—”

  “They’re digging around, Lawrence, and I don’t know why. Surely the stunt BLACK pulled in October didn’t help any. You know how murky our history with St. Mikael’s is. Are they searching for blackmail, or is there some secret I’m not aware of? I just don’t know. It makes me nervous. But I’m too old to play this game of war any longer, so I want you to watch them. Watch the Dietrichs like a hawk. Anything suspicious, anything uncovered…. Just keep an eye on everything. That is all I’m requesting.”

  The weight of guilt was almost enough to crush Levi right then and there. It had been so long since he’d heard his father mention St. Mikael’s, so long, and still it pained him so much to know that he knew more than his own father, the head of their house. He knew more about what had happened with Quinton and St. Mikael’s than Lord Ruslaniv himself!