by CM Raymond
Marcus grinned. “I went and slaughtered the remnant—right after I told the Captain to go fuck himself with a rearick’s hammer.”
“Ouch,” Julianne said with a grin. “So, am I going to have problems with you?”
“Dunno,” Marcus said. “Not if you turn out to be a halfway decent human being.”
Julianne held up her glass. “To a filthy shit quart of fucking decency.”
“Hear, hear!” Marcus laughed, tapping his glass on the Captain’s. “What about you? How’d you get to Captain without selling your soul to the Capitol?”
Julianne concentrated and tried to get inside the Guard’s head. He had a block up, and a pretty strong one, which was in itself suspicious. “Just hard work, I guess.”
“Come on. Lots of guys working their asses off out there. How’d you do it?” Marcus asked. “Let me in on your dirty little secret. What’s your story?”
Julianne sighed as Marcus’s probing was interrupted by Dirk. She never thought she’d be happy to see the halfwit. He slapped her on the back as he grabbed a seat.
“This is a damn good tradition, boss. Remember the last time we were here? Right before we went to see the freak shows in the Heights.”
Julianne bit her lip and nodded.
“Speaking of the last visit, there’s your girl now!” Dirk shouted over the noise, nodding at a dancer on the far end of the room. She was trying to catch Julianne’s eye.
Julianne sighed. The things I do for this city.
“Yeah. Looks like she wants a replay. You boys will have to excuse me.” Julianne glanced at Marcus. “I might be decent, but I ain’t no gentleman.”
She looked back over in the direction of the woman and saw she had grabbed a bottle and two glasses. Giving them a little wave in the air, the dancer nodded toward the backroom. Julianne knew she had to keep up appearances in front of the men, so she swaggered onward like Stellan would.
Weaving through the crowd, she caught up with the woman. She grabbed Julianne by the hand, and they stepped through a door into a hallway with a row of doors on either side. If Julianne was uncertain what went on behind the closed doors, she didn’t wonder for long. The sounds of conjugal visits all mixed together into a symphony of grunts and groans, punctuated by a female shout or two. Apparently, the ladies here were all great actresses.
The woman pushed through one of the doors, and Julianne followed.
Setting the two glasses down and pouring the ale, the woman said, “I’m glad you came back to me, Stellan. I was worried I’d scared you away last time.” She gave a wink and a sultry smile. “After the workout I gave you.”
Julianne accepted her glass and drank from the ale. One thing she still hadn’t gotten used to was low-grade alcohol that the lowlanders consumed. Arcadian alcohol was another thing that she wouldn’t miss once she made it home.
The woman started to undress, and Julianne raised a hand. “Not yet. Want to take this slow. Lay on the bed for me.”
Raising her eyebrows, the woman complied. “You don’t pay by the day, soldier.”
Julianne laughed, it came out gruff, like Stellan’s laughter would. “Yeah, yeah. Going on a mission tomorrow. Don’t need to worry about coin. I just want to sit for a second—enjoy the view.”
“Ooh, big man going on a big mission! What’ll it be this time?” The prostitute flipped onto her stomach and held her head up in her palms.
“You know enough to know I can’t say.”
The woman laughed. “Come on. You’re talking to ol’ Sapphire here. Half my job is keeping secrets.”
“And the other half?” Julianne asked.
“Making them.”
Julianne grinned. The woman was smart, and she wondered exactly why she would be involved in this kind of work. Sapphire—although that couldn’t have been her real name—was likely from the Boulevard, trying to get out the only way she knew how. That’s the way things worked in Arcadia. And her sass was probably an illusion, not much unlike the mystic’s own.
“All right, I’ll give you a hint. The Governor and Chancellor are sending me off to find something. Something very important. If I don’t bring it back, it might cost my job—maybe more.”
The woman scrunched her nose like a schoolgirl. “That sucks. But that’s the way of the Capitol, isn’t it? Always trying to take more than they give.” She sat up cross-legged on the bed.
Julianne stared at the woman, wondering why the hell she would say that. An experienced companion like Sapphire should know not to speak this way to a Capitol Guard.
The woman continued. “Maybe when I make enough, I’ll run away from this awful place. But then, I’d need a big strong man to go with me, to take care of me. Any interest in turning the tables? Are you for hire, Stellan?”
Julianne didn’t know this woman’s deal, but she certainly wasn’t going to play her game. “No, ma’am, my allegiance is to the Capitol, and I go where they tell me.”
The woman laughed. “Well, I guess that’s why you keep coming back to see me.” With a swift move, she pulled her shirt off, showing off a body that many Arcadians knew was worth the cost. “Because for an hour, my allegiance is all yours. You get to tell me where to go.”
A knot turned in Julianne’s stomach. It sickened her to see this poor young girl selling not only her body, but also her will. The Dragon’s Lair was officially on the list of institutions that she hoped to take down.
With a straight face, Julianne said, “Turn around. On all fours.”
The prostitute raised her eyebrows and cooed, “Yes, sir.”
Julianne focused her mind. She whispered a word under her breath as her eyes flashed white. The girl on the bed wobbled, then dropped into a sound sleep. Light snoring soon filled the room.
“Best night’s sleep you’ll ever have, darling,” Julianne said.
She dropped a pile of coins on the bedside table, and quietly left the room. All the mystic wanted was to sneak out the back of the brothel and into the night. The entire place made her feel dirty inside and out.
Some would argue that the women made their choices to work at the Lair. She knew that most of them were there because they had few other choices in Arcadia.
As she moved toward the end of the hall, a voice filled with contempt met her. It wandered out of the cracked door at the end of the hall.
“How the hell am I supposed to keep this place running if you won’t do what the customers ask for?” a voice shouted.
Julianne tried to push herself to ignore the confrontation and leave the hellhole. She had to protect her cover above all else.
“Frank, listen,” a thin, young voice sobbed, “that beast of a man—the things he wanted to do...”
The sound of a fist on flesh stopped the mystic in her tracks.
Some things just can’t be ignored, and she knew it.
Closing one eye, she peered through the crack in the door. A young girl quivered in the shadow of a balding man who towered over her. Her cheek was already red and starting to swell. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen.
“I don’t pay you to have sexual preferences, you little bitch,” he screamed, his bald head growing red.
He drew back with his right for a second strike, not caring if he damaged an asset in his portfolio.
****
Frank had convinced himself that the Dragon’s Lair offered a service to the men of Arcadia and to the girls from the Boulevard whom he employed. It was an easy job, until the girls got finicky about spreading their legs for the city’s finest noblemen… or were asked to do kinky, unseemly things.
It was the girl’s second offense, and he couldn’t afford to lose customers due to her timidity. He didn’t care what she was asked for.
“I don’t pay you to have sexual preferences, you little bitch,” he said.
Pulse quickening, he pulled back to hit her again. Before he could deliver the blow, a hand grabbed his forearm. He turned to find a woman holding his arm. She was
tall and beautiful, but she wasn’t one of his.
“What the fuck are—”
He stopped short as her eyes covered over with a milky white film.
Before he could speak to the mystery woman, his stomach stirred. He gagged as something wriggled up into his throat as if he were slowly vomiting. Clutching his throat, Frank panicked. His airway was blocked. Retching and coughing, the foul man opened his mouth as the obstruction continued to move.
It felt like someone was pulling a rope up, inch by inch, from his stomach.
He gagged again, and a snake, over a foot long, slivered out of his mouth and fell to the ground. His eyes went wide as it reared its head, fangs out and struck at his ankle.
“Mother fucker—”
Before he could defend himself, the sensation hit him again in the gut.
Fear rushed in as he heaved and gagged. A second snake dropped out of his mouth and wrapped around his leg.
As reality fell apart around him, he looked up at the beautiful woman. But she was gone or rather, had transformed. No longer a gorgeous face, but something cast in nightmares. Her skin lacked all color, her hair had mutated into dozens of serpents, like the ones that had escaped from his body seconds earlier.
Frank tried to scream, but nothing came.
The pale-faced woman grabbed his crotch and squeezed, twisting his genitals like a doorknob. A smile crept onto her lips.
“Do you like it, you little bitch?” she asked. “Do you, Frank?”
The woman released his man bits and tilted her head back.
She opened her mouth as if she were catching snowflakes, but her jaws just opened wider and wider like a serpent’s preparing to swallow its prey.
Finally, he screamed for help—realizing it was likely his last act.
Frank felt her fingers in his hair, and she pulled his face into her fanged mouth.
All went black.
****
Julianne let the man’s body drop to the floorboards in a quivering mess. His eyes were open, pupils dilated. He mumbled an indecipherable gibberish. A wet spot on his pants showed that Julianne’s illusion had scared the literal piss out of him.
“Is… is he OK?” the small girl whispered from her chair in the middle of the room.
She looked even younger up close, and Julianne considered kicking the living shit out of Frank’s convulsing body.
She shook her head. “He’s not even close to OK.”
The mystic pulled a bag of coins from her pocket and tossed them into the girl’s lap. “Take these. There’s enough there to give you a shot at starting over. Get out of this place and never come back.”
Standing, the girl weighed the bag in her hand. “Why would you do this?”
“Everybody deserves a chance. This is yours.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“One more thing,” Julianne said. “I was never here.”
The girl nodded. She turned to the filthy beast on the floor and kicked him squarely in the face. His head snapped back, but the shot did nothing to change his state. Thanking Julianne again, the girl ran for the door.
Giving the girl a moment’s head start, Julianne changed back into the likeness of the Capitol Guard and made off for the Noble Quarter.
****
It was dark outside in the fenced in yard, but with a snap of his fingers, Parker brought the magitech lights to life.
“Still can’t get over that magi-shit,” Karl said with a stroke of his beard.
Hannah looked at the lights, glowing like little moons around the perimeter of the property. “The lights are nice, but it would be nicer if they used their damn tech to do something kind… like, say, feed a freaking starving child.”
“I’m not sure there’s any tech for that,” Gregory said sheepishly. He kept his eyes on his feet, and Hannah wondered if he was thinking about his father.
Hannah was finally wearing her old clothes again, and she let her natural dark hair hang down. It felt good to look like herself again.
The night was cool, but they were planning on soon working up a sweat. There was an open stretch of grass in the middle of the yard, and a variety of melee weapons were spread out on a table just off to the side of the clearing.
Karl stood in the middle of the space, arms crossed and face grim. He nodded at Hannah. “Come, lass, try to take me down.”
Hannah took a step forward and paused. “I know you’re a damned good fighter, even for an old rearick, but this is hardly fair. I have magic.”
He shrugged. “Think I haven’t gone against you tricksters before? I whooped enough magical arses to make up my own Academy. Now, come on, don’t you pull any punches.”
A snide smile washed across Hannah’s face. She whipped her arms in arcs across her chest in a familiar pattern as two fireballs burst to life in her hands. With a thrust of her hands, she launched one toward the rearick, but Karl was faster than he appeared. With a quick step, he dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the fireball. His momentum carried him forward, and before Hannah could react, he was on her.
Grabbing Hannah’s arm, he pivoted and pinned it behind her back. She could hear his heavy breathing from behind her.
“Aye, I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of those fireballs, but to use magic, you need to use your hands. What are you going to do now?”
Hannah squirmed and struggled, trying first to get free.
“You’d be dead already, lass. If I were a remnant—or one of Adrien’s men.”
That last comment pissed her off, and even constrained, she was able to draw a fireball, albeit one smaller than before. Without being able to see, it was hard to aim, but she shoved the flame back behind her.
But Karl saw it coming. He shifted his weight, stepping to the side of her close-quarter attack. Her fireball launched across the lawn, finding an innocent, oak lawn chair in its path. A burst unsettled the quiet night; shards of wood flew in every direction.
The rearick released her and pushed her away, back into the center of the lawn.
Hannah’s eyes were still burning red, and her breathing was heavy.
“Learning how to cast magic ain’t the same thing as learning how to fight. It’s about reading your opponent, anticipating their moves. Coming up with surprising moves of your own. With your spell craft and my experience, you could be a formidable fighter indeed.” The rearick grinned. “Contrary to popular opinion here in Arcadia, the magician doesn’t always win.”
Parker whistled to Karl like a dog. “What does that prove? Hannah’s just a girl, after all.” Parker said it with a smile, but he still had to jump out of the way as she threw another ball of fire at his feet.
“Truce!” Parker yelled. “I don’t want to be on the receiving end of your magic either. But I do have some experience in the Pit. Taken down a champion, if I do say so myself. Why don’t you let me take a shot, man to man?”
Karl laughed. “The Pit? That’s like a child playing with blocks, thinking he can build the Academy tower.” He rolled his head and everyone could hear the vertebrae in his neck crackle and pop. “But if yer looking for a beating, step right up. Man to man.”
