by M. K. Gibson
“You have the same chance.”
“No, I don’t. Out there, off this island, I’m a nobody. Another petty hacker with a record and not enough credits to buy protection from the police. Here, at least I have purpose.”
Twitch took one of my synth smokes and lit one. Exhaling, she turned her head away. “That night wasn’t about sick kicks. Bhalin gave me protection as long as I . . . you know. And when he got bored with that, I had to start entertaining his Brutes.”
“Twitch . . . I—I didn’t know.”
She ignored me. “I don’t want Gh’aliss and Yeela dead because I cared for Bhalin, I’m glad the fucker is dead. They have to die because they took something from me. To get my rep back, I have to end them.”
“I’m offering you a way to escape. You don’t have to kill them.”
Twitch shook her head. “Where would I go?”
I paused a moment, considering the idea. “Löngutangar,” I blurted out. “Go to my land. They’ll take care of you.”
“That same land that may be bought out and destroyed by some demon prick?”
Damn it. She had a point. I shook my head. “The people would leave and find a new place. Back into the wastelands if they had to.”
“A great place for a city hacker,” she countered.
“You’d have friends. It’s the safest option.”
“Salem,” she said, looking at me as if she saw the truth standing before her, “nothing that involves you is safe. You bring suffering to everyone and everything in your life.”
Before I could respond, she said, “Just go. Go, get your rocks off one more time. Face your judgment and either leave a free man or escape. But I’m staying.”
“Think about it, Twitch,” I pleaded.
“I will. Just go.”
“OK,” I said. Twitch refused to meet my eyes.
“Are the protocols in place?” I asked, returning to business.
“Yes.”
Nodding, I turned to leave.
************************
Returning to Fixer territory, I headed to the barracks room I shared with Gh’aliss. Technically it was her room, as I was still a Nomad, but since we’d taken over, the rules didn’t seem to apply. Gh’aliss was in our room, receiving reports from a couple of her hellion Brutes. Because of our station, our room had been modified. Walls were knocked down to expand our living space.
“The Makers and the Growers request more time,” said one of the hellions, a cyclops-like monster with a single horn on his head.
“Tell them they have until tomorrow morning. And be specific when you tell them this: If they wait any longer, then the antidote to the poison I gave them in their water during our last meeting won’t do them any good.”
“Yes, Mistress,” the Brutes said, leaving the room. As they passed me, each averted their eyes and muttered “Technomancer.”
What? Where did they hear that?
“Oh, dear. I just secured us additional food rations and new furnishings. All it took was a little poison and threats.”
“Do you even have an antidote?”
“No.” Gh’aliss smiled.
I almost opened my mouth to say something, but just shook my head. “Whatever. Look, we need to talk.”
“Can it be in bed? I am feeling oh so devilish right now, and I’d like to celebrate.”
“Look, this is serious,” I said. “They are coming, right now, to give me my formal ruling.”
“How—how do you know?” Gh’aliss asked.
“I just do. But regardless of the outcome, I’m leaving.”
Gh’aliss narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean ‘leaving’?”
“I mean if they rule against me, I won’t let my people come to harm. Not if I can help it. I’m going to escape.”
“You’re leaving me,” she said. “Again.”
“I have to. Do you honestly think you could live the life I lead? Hell, even that life is gone if I have to escape. I’ll be a fugitive. Do you want that for you or your daughters?”
“My spawn can take care of themselves. I’ve already been a fugitive. I want you. I want you no matter what.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I do!” Gh’aliss said, crossing the space between us to throw her arms around me.
She placed her warm lips on mine in a forceful, passionate kiss. Her body pressed against mine. “How long do we have?”
“Less than an hour,” I said.
“Plenty of time,” she purred.
Gh’aliss pulled my shirt off as I undid the wraps of her halter. Her hands worked on the knot of my drawstring pants while I fumbled for the sash tie for her sarong.
“Besides, I know people in Lemegeton who could keep us safe. With what you know, we would be set for life.”
“After we save my people.”
“Of course, of course,” she said as she pulled my pants down. “Tell them all about Rictus and the two gods there and they’ll set us up for life,” she said as I felt her warm lips upon me.
Mmm . . .
Wait.
What did she say?
Chapter Thirty
I Love
“What did you say?” I asked her, pulling her head back by her horns.
Gh’aliss paused what she was doing, “I know people in Lemegeton who will take care of us, and we can do this forever.”
“No, damn it. The part about Ricky,” I said. “I’ve never mentioned him to you.”
“Salem, dear, of course you mentioned him. Now, do you want me to do this or not? Time’s ticking until you’re summoned.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, confirming through the Collective that I never mentioned Ricky to her.
“Good. You can start on me then,” she said, standing and dropping her sarong the rest of the way. She swayed her hips as she moved towards the bed to lie down.
“Gh’aliss, stop. I’ve never mentioned him. Nor have I ever mentioned the gods I know.”
“Maybe your computer thing is mis-remembering.”
“Nor have I ever mentioned my computer,” I said.
Things began falling into place. Technomancer. References to my Collective. Ricky. Gh’aliss herself. Of all demons, she just happened to be in the same prison as me at the same time? How did she know this stuff?
I mentally kicked myself.
Pants still around my ankles, I reached out and grabbed her shoulders, lifting her from the bed into the air. I shook her hard, harder than I meant to. “WHO SENT YOU?!” I screamed.
“Reynolds,” she pleaded.
“Salem, damn it!” I yelled again. “My name is Salem,” I said, calming myself. “Who the fuck sent you?!”
“You’re scaring me!” she yelled.
“Cut the scared girl crap. You know too much. Too much about me and my past—but not all of it, just recent events. And you’re here in Flotsam at the same time as me? Uh-uh. Bullshit. Tell me what the fuck is going on, right now.”
“Well, right now, your cock is out and vulnerable.”
“What? Oomph!” I gasped as Gh’aliss put a cloven hoof right between the boys.
I dropped her and clutched my crotch. Her follow-up kick hit me in the face, but it was she who yelped as the Collective threw up a pin-point shield. The impact rocked my head a little, but the kick cracked her shinbone as well.
You put a shield up for my face but not my balls? What the shit?! I sent to the Collective.
//FECAL QUERY RECIEVED - RESPONSE: HOST REQUIRED A DRASTIC REDUCTION TO THE LIBIDO FOR FULL COGNITIVE REASONING - TEMPORARY SCROTAL PAIN WAS DEEMED THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION WHILE FACIAL CONTUSIONS COULD LEAD TO IMPARED VISION//
I wanted to yell at the Collective, but it was right. My boner was gone. Hell, it may be dead. But I was thinking clearly again.
As Gh’aliss reared back for a stomping kick to my head, I lashed out with my fist, swiping wide and knocking her support leg out from under her. She spun in the air and crashed onto the floor
beside me in a painful heap.
“Damn, I forgot how fast you are,” she hissed. “In more ways than one.”
Ouch. Low blow.
“Look, we can sit here and beat the ever-living shit out of each other, or we can talk. Who sent you? It’s obvious now that you were here to get information out of me. You played me from moment one. You used our past and my guilt. And I fell for it. Who wants to know about Ricky?”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with or who he is.”
“I have a good idea,” I said. I knew Ricky was a descendant of angels. Powerful ones, since he was a Titan or Giant or whatever myths you look into. Beings that predated the regular gods. And I wasn’t a fool, I knew he had machinations. But what did the demons want with him?
Demons . . . she mentioned Lemegeton. And the two gods, which means Vali and Vidar. The only powerful demon who even knew Ricky was in the same room with Vidar and Vali was Abraxas. But he was dead.
Wait . . . no. There was another. Dantalion, the Archduke of Lemegeton. He was there as well when we killed Abraxas and destroyed his tower, freeing the souls he was siphoning from captured humans. And Dantalion was a Sloth demon. But what did he call it? Not sloth, but . . .
The Denial of Potential.
Keeping one from reaching their goals and retarding abilities.
Damn it.
I looked at Gh’aliss, having puzzled it out. Or at least I thought I had. “What really happened to you? The morning of the fire.”
“Exactly what I told you.”
“So when did Dantalion find you? Or did you find him?”
Her eyes went wide, if only for the briefest of moments, confirming my suspicions. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“Cut the shit!” I yelled. “I’m not a complete idiot. You didn’t know who I was after I abandoned the Reynolds persona, which means you were briefed on me and my recent past. And you were planted here. For what? Intel on me? Ricky? What does Dantalion want?”
“Salem, I . . . “ She started, then stopped. The naked demon just shook her head. “Fuck it.”
Gh’aliss got up and got two cigarettes from the makeshift dresser and poured two glasses of Flotsam-made vodka she got as a gift from the Growers. She offered me one of each and I took them. Sitting on the bed, she crossed her legs and smoked, occasionally taking a sip of the clear liquor.
“Everything I told you was the truth. Well, mostly. Several months ago, after the fall of Abraxas in Ars Goetia, your picture was plastered all over the news in Lemegeton, calling you a domestic terrorist. Of course I recognized you. How could I not? There were contact lines for anyone with information about you. And I wanted to tell them everything they wanted to hear and few lies on top of it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Like I said, I was running an unlicensed drug ring. Last thing I needed was the local lord’s bishop looking into my business. Also, I didn’t need to bring even more shame upon myself, or my daughters, for failing to keep you. But eventually I did get caught. My spawn and I all at once got picked up about a month before coming to Flotsam. Weeks went by and the beatings didn’t stop. I—I couldn’t take any more. During one of the sessions, I screamed out your name. I screamed that I knew Reynolds. And that’s when they paused. Apparently many people tried to give information about Salem, but none knew anything about you, they were simply looking for reward money.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Everything. Everything I knew and more. That’s when he came.”
“Dantalion.”
“Yes,” she said, sipping at her drink while her hand shook with the slight tremors of one remembering horror. “He came to me. He told me he remembered you, not just from Abraxas’s tower, but from before.”
Shit. I’d hoped he hadn’t. I did my best to bluff when I saw him back in Abraxas’s citadel. But he had been present when I was awarded my land by Valefor.
“Dantalion looked into my mind and knew I was telling the truth. He told me he had plans for you. Something about how he warned you that you’d drawn the eyes of the princes and that you would have wished to die in that citadel.”
“Yeah, it went something like that. I also had a gun to his head and basically told him to fuck off.”
“I know. He showed me,” she said, tapping her head. “I was impressed.”
“Thank you.” I half chuckled. A naked Lust demon was sitting on a bed while I had my pants still down, and we were having the first honest conversation in over fifty years.
“So I was your mission then?”
“Yes. I was to inform him of everything, keep you on the island if possible, and if not, to take you back to him. If I did, then he would reinstate me into Hell. They’d heal my scars and make me whole again.”
I nodded. I’d been betrayed by people close to me for far less. “And now?”
“I honestly don’t care. Reyn—Salem, I’m tired.”
“Isaac,” I said, blurting out my real name.
“What?”
“It’s my real name. Isaac McMillan.”
“That’s . . . horrible,” she said, shaking her head.
“Hey.”
“Isaac? How biblical and repulsive,” Gh’aliss said, reaching her hand out and caressing my face. “To me, you’ll always be Reynolds. The cunning, fierce, and dangerous man I fell for.”
“And in the bedroom?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
Gh’aliss rolled her eyes. “A mighty warrior...who tries hard.”
“I’ll take it,” I smiled. “But, if I’m the target, then why ask about Ricky and the others?”
Gh’aliss took another pull from her cigarette and a sip of her vodka. “Everything was contingent on information about them. Especially Rictus.”
“Why?”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“What he really is.”
“I know some,” I said, clearly intrigued.
“If you only know some, then you don’t even know a fraction what he is and what he is capable of. Dantalion showed me, in my mind. He said it was forbidden to speak it, but he found a loophole using his telepathy.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“Rictus is really—”
Before Gh’aliss finished her thought, the room grew cold and dark. Shadows moved across the room, swirling patterns of darkness. I heard the sound of clacking and then an ominous voice:
“Lo, I was there, a mist over Egypt. And a wailing was heard unlike ever before.”
“What is that?” I said.
“No, no no no!” Gh’aliss cried, terror gripping her heart.
I grabbed her by the shoulders. “Gh’aliss, what is it?”
“He is here!”
“Who?”
“MASTEMA!”
Clawed spider legs burst forth from between Gh’aliss’s breasts as shadows coalesced behind her. She looked down in shock at the claws, then back at me.
“I . . . I love . . .”
Gh’aliss never finished. The claws tore her apart, ripping her body in half in a horrible spray of blood and organs. Her scream was brief but deafening. The sound of her flesh tearing was haunting. But not as much as her eyes. In the last second before he tore her apart, I saw her eyes, and for the first time I felt the connection between us.
Those beautiful eyes would haunt me forever.
Each half of her corpse was tossed aside as Mastema, warden of Flotsam, perched on the bed behind where she’d just been moments ago, speaking. Connecting. Living. The pieces of what used to be Gh’aliss were now on the floor, tossed away as casually as a pair of dirty socks.
Behind his spider-like mandibles, I saw Mastema smile.
“Baron, you are hereby summoned. It is time for your ruling. Time to put your dick away and face judgment.”
Chapter Thirty-One
How Do You Plead
A long time ago . . .
“I hate you,” Reynolds
said into the bathroom mirror. “I fucking hate everything about you.”
Reynolds stood gripping the porcelain sink, staring at himself. Hating himself. Hating everyone and everything.
“You’re a killer. You’re a traitor. You let innocent people die. You let the demons win. I don’t care why you did it. I don’t care how you justified it. You gave up on hope. You deserve to die, over and over. What that demon said in the room only scratched the surface of the fucking scum you are. How many nights did you lay in bed after fucking that demon bitch, where you plotted the fall of good people? How many times did you plan to take whatever you wanted? How many people went cold and hungry because you had to fill your warehouses? How many people went broke, buying your goods? For what? So you could get richer? So you could buy the land? Fuck you, Reynolds. Fuck you!”
The mirror’s glass shattered as his fist smashed into the wall. Picking up the clippers, he began shaving his hair off, down to the skin. Lock after lock of his long auburn hair fell into the sink. When that was done, he shaved his beard next, leaving only the goatee behind.
Carefully, he picked up a shard of glass and selected his targets. First, he drew a deep line across his forehead, cutting a gash from his hairline, through his eyebrow and down his left cheek. The next cut went along his chin, and the third crossed his jawline on his left side, bisecting the original cut.
Once he was a bloody mess, he opened a small black standalone data-terminal and opened a connection with his internal network. He commanded the Collective to heal the wounds, but leave the scar tissue for now. He also commanded the nanite machines to smooth his face out. Instead of looking in his mid-40s, he wanted a younger, mid-20s appearance. His Collective acknowledged. When they once again asked for direct access to his cerebral net, he closed the data-port and turned the transmitter off.
People would see the shaved head and the scars and ignore the man underneath. Once he was satisfied with his rougher exterior, he donned a pair of modern denim pants, boots, and a motorcycle jacket from the old world.
