by CM Raymond
Pretending to be someone as crude as Stellan took her right up to the edge.
There was also the issue of her physical body. Although she looked like the guard, she still maintained her own physical stature behind the image of Stellan—and the one thing the dead Guard had going for him was that he was jacked. While not out of shape herself, Julianne had spent the last two decades sitting in meditation—not swinging weapons and training in the yard. Being Stellan required proof of his strength—and sometimes martial skill. A few times she had been able to use her mental magic to convince the others, but some things just couldn’t be faked, and Julianne’s dead-tired muscles were the proof.
Then there was the little matter of Stellan’s regular trips to the Arcadian brothels...
Needless to say, Julianne was ready to get back to the Heights—back to her people and out of the ruse that had overtaken her life. Compared to the serenity of the mountains, Arcadian life was always a scramble. People ran in every direction trying to make something of themselves, always caring not to waste time on things like silence and contemplation.
Life in the lowlands was upside down, and Julianne couldn’t wait to turn things right-side up.
Although she never wanted to join Ezekiel’s mission, she knew that her collusion was for the good. Not only for Arcadia, but also, likely, for all of Irth. It was abundantly clear that the Governor was up to something. The size of the Guard continued to swell, and souls were being added from outside of the walls of Arcadia. Most of the new men were in training, practicing maneuvers that were more akin to wartime offensives than urban civic defense.
Over the time that she’d been in the city as Stellan, she had done all she could to garner information out of the other Guards. Through both explicit conversation and her mystical wandering through the men’s minds, there was little to be found. They all knew what she did: something was going to happen. Something big, but nobody knew what it was—even her immediate supervisor.
As she finished getting dressed, Julianne overheard Dirk and Dietrich, the two other Guards she met in the Heights—who were now under her direct command. They were filling the air with their usual inane prattling.
“Nah, man,” Dirk said while toweling off his ass. “I just keep having the same dream over and over again. I’m walking around, minding my own business, when the floor opens up and swallows me whole.”
Dietrich laughed. “It’s sexual.”
“What do you mean?” When Dirk asked questions, his eyes furrowed like a puppy’s.
“Let me ask you, when was the last time you got laid?” Dietrich responded.
Dirk scowled. “What the hell does that matter?”
“They say dreams are all sexual. So, you getting swallowed whole by the ground, it means something. You have a woman hit ya in bed or something? Or maybe you’re having some problems with your bits.” Dietrich motions to Dirk’s crotch with a laugh. “Has your twig been saggin’?”
“My twig? What the bloody shit you talking about? I’ve got a trunk down here, if you know what I mean.”
Julianne couldn’t help smiling to herself as she heard the two squabble. Apparently, Dirk’s psyche remembered Ezekiel’s attack. Thankfully, his waking mind still had no recollection of any such thing happening.
As she stood to leave, a young man, naked from the waist up stood in front of her. He was cut, unlike most of the other Guards, but he stood at attention like a soldier. Clearly, he was part of the Arcadian forces but Julianne didn’t recognize him. She was weighing whether or not it was likely Stellan would have known him when the man answered the question for her.
“You Stellan?” he asked.
“Who’s asking?” Julianne responded in Stellan’s gruff tone.
“I’m Marcus. Doyle sent me to join your unit. Says you’re going to need some help in the coming days.”
Julianne coughed up phlegm and spat it at his feet. “Why the hell does Doyle think we need you?”
“Shit. I don’t know,” Marcus said. “I’ve been out at an outpost halfway to the Mad Lands. Just got my ass home, and before I could even store my gear, Doyle sent me your way.”
Julianne focused and tried to get inside of the man’s head, but it was blank.
That’s bizarre, she thought. It meant the man’s mind was well protected.
She sighed. “Well, you can’t be worse than what I’m already working with. Welcome to the unit.”
He nodded. “Thanks. So, what’s our job?”
“Do what you’re fucking told. Half the time it’s sitting on our asses out at the gate. Every now and then we get to run off some remnant that wanders too close to the walls. But at the end of the day, our job is to walk around and collect a paycheck—which ain’t so bad.”
Dirk jumped in. “We did get to make a trip to the Heights, weeks back. That was some pretty cool shit.”
Julianne shot him a look as if to tell the idiot to keep his damned mouth shut. But it was too late.
“That right?” Marcus asked. “Why the Heights?”
“Like I said,” Julianne cut back in before Dirk could answer. “I just do what I’m told. The boss sent me there to check in on the mystics—make sure those damned loonies were behaving themselves.”
“What’d you find?”
Julianne laughed. “A bunch of drunks enjoying a pretty kickass view.”
Marcus grinned. “Sounds like we’ll get to see another kickass view on this next run.”
“Run?” Julianne asked.
“Shit, yeah. I was supposed to tell you, we’re heading out tomorrow. They’re sending us on some crazy mission to the North to retrieve something for the eggheads in the Academy.”
Julianne’s head spun. Why hasn’t Doyle told me about this earlier? The change in plans made her feel uncomfortable. She needed to get away to discuss it with Ezekiel. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always easy for Stellan to do.
Dietrich chimed in. “Mission? Tomorrow? You know what that means?”
Dirk started dancing, thrusting his pelvis in the air with stuttered gyrations. He sang, “Booty call. Booty call. Booty call.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow like you’d do while scolding a child. “The hell?”
“A little tradition,” Dietrich said. “Before a big mission, we take a night to focus our minds and bodies…”
“At the whore house,” Dirk interjected.
Oh, shit, Julianne thought. Her long day just turned into an even longer night.
****
Parker wandered around the mansion, picking up every trinket and decoration for inspection before putting it back in place. For years, he had dreamed of “making it” so he could afford a place like this and live the life he was currently living.
It had only been a few weeks, but he was already bored out his mind.
What he wouldn’t do to be running cons on the streets with Hannah right now. Even fighting in the Pit was better than sitting on his ass.
But he was laying low. They all knew the Governor wanted him. The fact that he escaped and was spreading the truth was bad for business. And now, the Prophet was on the hunt with his Disciples because of his scene in the marketplace.
If he was pissing off dickwads like Jed and the Governor, Parker knew he must be doing something right. Nevertheless, he obeyed Ezekiel’s order to stay put. It would take bigger balls than Parker had to disobey the Founder.
He could hear his mother humming in the kitchen as she prepared the big meal for the entire team. Parker had never seen her so happy, but he wasn’t sure if it was being reunited with her son or the sense of mission she felt by being a part of something bigger. Either way, her happiness brought him a bit of joy, even cooped up in the mansion as he was.
Turning to inspect the great room one more time, he was stopped as a door slammed open upstairs. Parker hit the ground as a blur of dark green rushed over his head.
“What the bloody hell, Sal?” he shouted at Hannah’s dragon.
Sal lan
ded with a thud and turned his head to Parker who was still flat on the deck. A forked tongue lashed in and out of his mouth, and Parker was certain that the creature smiled at him.
“Yeah, we’re both prisoners. Two peas in a very small pod. And this pod just keeps getting smaller for you.” Parker laughed as Sal dropped to his belly and then shifted his weight to lean on one side of his scaly ass. Sal kept growing, and Parker was right. Sometime soon, the dragon would outgrow the mansion. But if things in Arcadia kept progressing as they seemed to be, remaining in the mansion wouldn’t be an option for any of them.
War was coming—one way or another.
Sal snapped to attention, his head cocked toward the door.
“She’s home, isn’t she?” Parker asked. “You make a pretty good guard dog, you little son of a bitch.”
Sal glanced over his shoulder—like he understood what Parker was saying. Parker thought for a moment that maybe mocking the dragon was not a smart idea.
The door swung open, and Sal leaped in its direction. Hannah stood grinning ear to ear in her blonde hair. Gregory, her friend from the Academy, shrieked and fell back when he saw the dragon.
“Damn it,” he said, “I’m never going to get used to that thing.”
Hannah and Parker both laughed as she scratched the side of Sal’s head. She hit the magic spot, and the beast’s back leg kicked uncontrollably, bringing more laughter to the room. Even Gregory joined in this time.
“Time for food, kids,” Eleanor said from the doorway to the kitchen.
She held two serving plates piled high with meats, and cheese, and bread. All three of them rolled their eyes at Parker’s mom calling them kids. It was the plight of the young adult stuck between childhood and pure independence, but each of them felt as if they had aged in the past months—aged by the conflict and the weight of loss.
Nevertheless, the three of them dove for their seats around the table. Before Eleanor could even set up the plates properly, they were digging in.
“Shit, this is good,” Hannah said with her mouth stuffed with beef.
“Language, Hannah!” Eleanor said.
She flushed, if only a little. “Sorry. It’s just that after years in the Boulevard, I never thought I would eat like this.” She shoved half a roll into her mouth and washed it down with a gulp of ale. “And casting makes me so damn…” She glanced quickly at the older woman and back. “Uh, darn hungry.”
Eleanor looked her up and down. “Well, you better hope magic burns calories, too, or else you’ll lose that figure of yours pretty quickly. Won’t be nineteen forever, darling.”
Parker shrugged and mouthed the word “sorry” as his mother left the room. Hannah and Gregory simultaneously burst out laughing.
“I spend all day spying on those noble wankers, and she thinks I’m worried about my waistline,” Hannah said. “I’m a magician, dammit. And a magician needs to eat!”
A gruff voice from the edge of the room interrupted the hilarity. “What ya really need is some hand-to-hand combat training. That’ll give you a right appetite.”
“Karl!” Hannah shouted. She jumped out of her seat to run over and gave the rearick a hug. Parker saw him blush under his beard.
“Ah, nice to see you, too, lass,” Karl said. “But I’m serious. It’s about time I showed you a thing or two about real fighting. Your magic is nothing to sneeze at, but there’s nothing quite like knowing how to throw a proper punch when yer in the thick of it. And believe me, we’re going to be in the thick of it right soon.”
Parker gave him a nod, and asked, “What did you find out?”
Karl shrugged. “More of the same. I’ll save my full report for the meeting this evening. Now, if you’re done shoving your face full of cheese, why don’t you meet me outside, and we’ll get to that training.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Julianne walked behind the blunder twins—Dirk and Dietrich—who were already assaulting the newest member of their team with questions about his previous service. She kept an ear open, trying to gain some sort of perspective about who exactly this man was. Marcus’s arrival was unexpected, and the fact that Doyle told him about the mission first was a little more than disconcerting.
Their conversation was pretty boring—mostly empty boasts about how much remnant ass he kicked—so Julianne shifted her focus from listening to the dipshit’s question to trying to get inside of Marcus’s mind. But just like when she had tried earlier, there was nothing there. Her face grew hot, and she felt sweat rise on her brow. Something wasn’t right here, and it scared the hell out of her.
“Here we are, Captain,” Dirk shouted, as they walked up to a storefront on the edge of the market.
The Dragon’s Lair was known as a “gentleman’s club,” but everyone knew that a gentleman was hard to find within its walls. Julianne had been to the establishment more than once, and it was one of the worst parts of her masquerade. While its front was a strip club, most of the Arcadians knew it was a place where a guy could go if he were feeling especially lonely—and had enough coin to pay for a private audience.
“Let’s do this,” she shouted, with a shit eating grin—her best illusion yet.
The four men pushed through the door and into the dark confines of the brothel. As they passed through a short, narrow corridor, they broke into the main room. It was dimly lit and filled with drunk men and half naked women—of all shapes and sizes. They fawned over their customers, working the crowd of Arcadians, rearick, and others who had journeyed to the city from throughout the Arcadian Valley.
Julianne was sickened by the fact that many of the women were at least ten years her junior. She moved away from the crowd and found a dark table in the back corner. Marcus followed behind her, taking a seat across from his new Captain.
“Why aren’t you out there picking out your sex toy like the rest of em?” Julianne asked motioning to the stage.
Marcus grinned. “I’ve got nothing wrong with moistening my staff every now and again, but I prefer not to pay for sex. I still believe a man has to earn it.”
“So, I have a gentleman on my team all of a sudden?” Julianne asked, unsure how exactly to broach the conversation.
“Not so gentle,” Marcus said. “But a man nonetheless. It is possible to kick some evil, remnant ass one minute and still be able to treat these women as humans the next. Being tough doesn’t have to make you a complete asshat.”
Julianne finished her ale and motioned for two more. “Have whatever qualms you want, kid. So, what were you doing out near the Madlands anyway?”
“On assignment. Governor sent me and a group of six to protect an asset that was traveling out that direction. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what the hell the purpose of the whole thing was. I go where they tell me—don’t ask many questions. Bitch of it was that we were given strict orders not to engage anyone—or anything—unless it was a direct threat to the asset.”
Julianne nodded to the barmaid as she placed two fresh pints on the table. “I take it you didn’t follow that order.”
“Nope. We were getting damn close to the edge of the Madlands, when we saw a small village—an oversized farm, really—being attacked by the remnant. I told the commander that we should engage. Save the damned souls from being devoured. He told me to hold to ignore them, let the poor folks take care of their own business. So, I did what I had to.”
“Which was?”
