Order of Dust

by Nicholas J. Evans

  “Rest,” she said. “Does this building have access to the roof?”

  He nodded, “It was my favorite place to smoke. Almost forgot I used to smoke, could use one right now.”

  “Right now, you just need to rest. Let your body put itself back together, that is what the Guts are for. When you are not so fragile, meet me on the roof.”

  It may have been hours, or even an entire day, but when Jackson awoke he no longer felt like his body would crumble under its own weight. He felt stiff, and his ribs felt sore, but he could move again normally. He pulled himself up from the couch while still in a groggy haze, and stretched his stiff, weak limbs as if he were pushing blood back through his veins. He could have used more rest, he thought, but he remembered Ayres had been waiting for him on the roof; possibly for quite some time. He walked slowly to the door, pulling his coat off of the couch’s back, holstered the weapons that Ayres had removed and left on the table, and made his way to the roof exit at the end of the hall.

  “I thought you’d never wake up,” Ayres jested as she stood at the center of the roof with the dark sky above her. “How do you feel?”

  “Like shit,” grunted Jackson. “But, better.”

  “That is good, very good.” Ayres removed her large cleaver from her hip, gripping the handle tightly and letting the tip of the long blade rest on the roof. “Did you bring your weapons, Order?”

  Jackson braced himself, instinct kicking in again. The fire rolled within him once more, and he rapidly pulled out his weapons in a nervous panic. His eyes were wide, fixated on her in a fog of confusion. He thought of the angel in front of him, the same one that had cared for his wounds and watched over him protectively. Jackson watched as she bent her knees, extending her legs in a warrior-like stance as if she was preparing for a war, and his heart pounded within him like an angered boxer.

  “What are you doing?!” he shouted in a frenzy. “You–”

  He had only blinked and, when his eyelid reopened, she was already at him, her blade shoved to his throat. Jackson had not even lifted his guns toward her yet. She moved without sound at a speed that was inconceivable.

  “Be glad,” she began with her cold eyes locked with his, “you have not faced my kind. You’d already be dead.”

  “W-what is this?” he struggled to say as his nervousness slowly was overtaken by his new fury. He squeezed the pistols and slid his finger over the triggers.

  “Easy, Order,” Ayres answered, noticing his subtle movements. She lowered her weapon and backed away, but Jackson held his firmly. “You were right, you know.”

  Jackson took a step back and held up the Arm with his aim on the warrior and raised a brow to question her.

  “You are not prepared for this. For the title, for the cases. You cannot continue like this.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” he grumbled with a clenched jaw.

  “You have a point,” she raised her weapon once more. “But I do not know why you can’t recall your training. So, I will train you. Ready yourself.”

  Jackson watched as she got into stance once more and braced himself, “What if I actually shoot you?”

  Ayres smirked, “You won’t. Not yet.”

  Jackson was still deep in thought when he arrived at his building this time. He was so lost in the memories of his first case, it felt like a lifetime ago and he looked back on it as if he was a completely different person back then. He could still remember the fear, the anxious shake that made his nerves tremble in his skin, and the emptiness that came when he took his first human life. Even then, he could remember the girl in the blue dress who had truly saved him when she could have saved herself, and he hoped that she knew he had avenged her in some way.

  Soon, he would even do it for his late fiancée, he told himself.

  “Welcome home, Order,” Ayres said without looking behind her while the door opened. The room was dark with the exception of one dimly lit lamp and the flow of moonlight through the window.

  Jackson removed his boots and jacket at the door this time, pulling a small box from its pocket. He walked through the living room and passed the sleeping Aldrich that lay flailed on the couch with a book laying on his chest. He placed the box beside the man-child and gave him a small nod of acknowledgment even as he slept before he took his place standing by Ayres. They stood side by side in brief silence, peering through the window as two Roman-esque statues, each with their legs spread and locked in position, arms crossed; a stance that would shame a superhero.

  “Did you know about tonight’s job?” Jackson whispered and looked towards Ayres.

  Her eyes pranced around the view beneath her of the dark streets, her brow moved from stern to light. “I did not,” she said softly. “At least, not before you left.”

  “It was a set up,” Jackson said in a low but angered tone. “He wanted me to... To feel something toward the Un-Ascended.” He looked back out the window, “Maybe it was for Aldrich’s sake.”

  “That does not sound like the Ender at all,” Ayres said sternly. “Do you think he truly cares at all for the poor boy back there? For that matter, do you honestly believe he even cares about you?”

  Jackson looked outside at the bleak night. “No, but this case was… different. No Un-Ascended buying fresh bodies, or anyone trying to kill me at all.”

  “I’ve known Azazel for longer than I would have wished to,” Ayres said, pointing her eyes toward Jackson. “If this world was checkers, he plays chess. The strings he pulls are so slight, so invisible, you can hardly say they are there at all. Remember that, Order. There is always more than what you see.”

  “Still,” he responded and met her gaze. “Guess it changed something for me.”

  She nodded, “Do you think it worked?”

  “I don’t know,” he said softly.

  “I will say this, Jackson,” she said as he began to walk toward the bedroom. He stopped, and looked back over his shoulder. “You didn’t call them demons this time.”

  Jackson did not respond, and instead opted to just continue watching the city move beneath him, just beyond the window. He thought of New Ashton as he remembered it for just a moment, a different city where the scum at least attempted to hide themselves instead of popping up in every abandoned space on every desolate street corner to buy and sell people like they are nothing but empty shells. He thought of the times he would stand at this window with her, and how she would comment on how the moonlight sprinkled the wet street after the rain in just the right way so that it would look like it was over a slow running stream. He remembered how it reflected off of her eyes as she looked from this very spot. Jackson would have smiled, if only he could.

  He turned from Ayres and began to walk toward his room. He passed the sleeping Aldrich, and as Jackson approached his bedroom he swore he could hear Ayres let out a small laugh. He entered the dark room, lightly closed the door, and the calm of the night carried him away to rest.

  The next morning began in a similar routine. Jackson exited the dark bedroom to a blaring light pouring into the hallway from his living room. Ayres was now on the couch, seated with her blade across her lap and staring down at her own reflection. The boy was not in the living room, but judging by the screaming of a teapot from the kitchen, he was awake and had found the box Jackson left for him. His stiff body pushed out in a large stretch as he wandered down the hall followed by a yawn roaring from his depths. He felt as though he was asleep for years, possibly even another nineteen of them. As he walked past the kitchen Aldrich turned towards him giving him a smile and a nod of his head.

  “Good morning, Order,” said Ayres, who actually turned to meet him this time. She remained almost expressionless, except for the gesture of a nod.

  Jackson met her with a nod of his own. He slowly walked toward the chair beside the couch and dropped himself down into it. Immediately, he got a better look at her weapon and admired the odd shape and size. It was like a carving tool, he thought, more than someth
ing used for an actual fight.

  “The list Aldrich made is done,” Jackson remarked. “I’m no closer to finding the man who killed me.” Jackson grinded his teeth and clenched his jaw, “I still don’t know what last night’s case was about, but I’m done wasting my time. I need answers.”

  Ayres looked up with a firm gaze, “Where do you intend to find them?”

  Jackson flung a stare back at her, “Maybe I’ll try your boss this time…”

  The cold, firmness of Ayres face lightened for a moment, and she leaned back on the couch. “Oh, Order,” she said with a unique lightness. “It is like I told you when we first met, I am from Usra. I am the connection to the First Light for you, she will not answer your call like the Ender does. She, like yourself, does not enjoy wasting her time.”

  “We’ll see,” Jackson responded. “Usra…”

  It was silent, with nothing but the sound of Aldrich’s whistling tea pot echoing through the apartment. Ayres stared at Jackson with a proud smirk as he mumbled her name again, and still nothing came. Jackson felt the stir within him once more.

  “Damn it,” he said growing angry. “Usra!”

  Still, silence consumed them.

  After a few moments Aldrich called from the kitchen, “Did she arrive?”

  Jackson stewed in the torrent of his emotions and let the swell of the anger at his core die down until it slept like an old dog once more. He had grown a relationship with the new rage within him, the one that the old Jackson had not ever felt. It was a partnership, and Jackson learned to calm the anger when needed, or unleash it. This, he decided, was not the time to feed into that fire.

  A sprite laugh came from beside him as Aldrich entered the room with two steaming mugs in his tiny hands.

  “Oh my, that was a good fit of chuckling! The very idea of her arriving to this hovel at our command is almost hysterical in idea alone!” He passed Jackson one of the cups.

  “Call him then,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  “Azazel…” muttered Aldrich into an open book, sipping his tea with a pinky out from a mug that read I Hate Mondays featuring the image of a bright orange cat.

  Ayres stood as the smell of old ash and burning wood filled the air as the dreaded black cloud puffed into existence onto the couch, between the sitting boy and her. As the smoke rapidly cleared the horrid grin gleamed, followed by the haunting eyes and pinkish skin of Azazel. He sat comfortably with a leg crossed over, arms folded, staring at Jackson intently.

  “Ay, Jackie!” he said with a maniacal smile. “Noticed I didn’t pick up a certain Dust last night.”

  “Yea, you set me up,” Jackson grumbled. “Look, I don’t want these pointless cases. I need to find the one who fucked up my life, and my carpet. The one who screwed up my carpet. And my life.”

  “Woah, woah, Jackie. Takes a little time. We’ll get ’em don’t worry about that, they all go eventually. Besides, I didn’t set you up, and believe me I know a thing or two about set-ups.” He then turned his gaze towards the grimacing angel beside him. She let out a sigh in disgust. “Still not warming up to me, aye sweetcheeks?”

  “Don’t call me sweetcheeks, you leech in a suit,” she rattled.

  Azazel pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards her as she walked away. “Quite the looker there, right Jackie?”

  Jackson ignored these comments. “For something as old as you are, you are a real creep,” he said with a scowl. “You talk like a creep too.”

  “Ha!” Azazel laughed hard. “Oh, Jackie. I don’t have any control over that.” He continued laughing. “You forget; I am the end.” He grew a little more serious in tone but still held his creepy smile. “Take my accent for example. It changes to reflect who is bringing us closer to that end,” he said in an old London accent. “Whoever is the most dangerous,” he said, now Russian. “Most evil,” now German. Then back in his classic Godfather-Mafia accent, “Had hundreds, maybe thousands of accents over the years, kid. Then, eventually, the accents just stopped.”

  Azazel glared at Jackson with the glee of a psychotic circus clown, “You know, I used to speak dinosaur too.”

  Jackson glowered at the thing before him that grinned like a comedian on open mic night. He sipped his tea and winced as the bitter dish water slide along his taste buds. It made him wish he could turn tea into coffee, like the fictional water-to-wine.

  “Tell me then,” Jackson began. “Why do you think it stopped?”

  Another sinister chuckle cut from Azazel. “Oh, I don’t know, Jackie. But... I think the problem is that right now… Everyone is bringing about the end.” He smiled large, flashing teeth and cheekbones pushed high. “No one person, one faction, is doing any worse than the other. Humanity is naturally, as a whole, coming to the end.”

  Azazel’s laughter rose, a church choir crescendo that bounced off the walls of the small apartment and rang out loudly. Shrill and pitchy, like a witch’s cackle on Halloween night.

  “I, personally, still find my own accent to be just a bit unnerving. It is, after all, theorized to be the very accent used by Jack himself,” Aldrich said after a sip of tea, interjecting the monologue of laughter from the Ender. “The Ripper, of course.”

  “Woulda made a great Order, said it back then and sayin’ it now,” Azazel said. “Usra disagreed of course.”

  “Well, you answered my next question, I guess.” Jackson groaned as he stood to his feet. “How many Orders have there been?”

  Aldrich and Azazel shared a laugh together, both gleaming their horrible Un-Ascended brand of smiles. “Good Jackson, how much time do you have?” Aldrich said. “I have known of at least three in my lifetime alone, which granted, has been longer than expected.”

  “A dozen, a hundred, don’t really make a difference does it, Jackie?” Azazel chimed in.

  Jackson could almost smell the bullshit.

  “Hmph. I guess I’ll save more questions for your next visit. Now… next case,” Jackson said coldly, moving towards the front door and putting on his signature coat and his worn black boots.

  “Oh, Jackson…” Azazel said in an excited whisper. “How I’ve waited for this one... For so long...”

  6

  Citizen

  They lay beside one another, a lover’s embrace.

  “You are... You are so beautiful...” a man said, laying on the hardwood floor. His hand softly stroked the back of the woman's head beside him. Her auburn hair flowed like silk between his fingers. “Those eyes… those lips…” and he pressed his own against hers in the heat of passion.

  Her head was still as he released his lips from hers. His hand firmly held her as their eyes reflected each other’s; his a brilliant, deep blue like the water around Hawaii in a brochure, and her own a fading brown. The tip of his finger outlined her soft, pale face and rested on her bottom lip. He smiled, and let out a sigh. His fingers toured the length of her nude body, trailing gently from her shoulders and down her arms, prancing over her stomach and landing on her soft thigh. The man smiled at her and gently placed another light kiss on the hill of her cheek, giggling as he did so.

  “This was… Wonderful, my dear. Honestly the highlight of my week. But, I should really get going. Your husband will be home soon, after all.” He rose to his feet and looked into his reflection in the window. What looked back was a chiseled face, strong jaw, and full head of plush blonde hair. He admired how he looked, smiled at himself.

  He reached down and felt her hair one more time. His hand clutched a fist full of her flowing locks and pulled the head up to his side, leaving the body behind. As if a full jazz band had appeared, the man began to throw out his arms and legs, twirling and shaking in a dance amongst the dark silence of the home. He shimmied his way into the kitchen and dropped his date into a plastic grocery bag before swinging it around him like an orbiting moon as he flailed to the imaginary music. The man hummed while he walked out of the home, the smell of bleach wafted from the door behind him, head in hand with dr
oplets of thick, crimson blood decorating the path behind them. In the empty house all that remained was a mangled torso, cold and still. The skin took a purple tint as the pool of blood under it flowed like a hero’s cape hanging from its now empty shoulders.

  The home was dark, the air cold, but the smell was strong. A gleam of lights poured through the window, the faint sound of thick rubber rolling along a gravel driveway. A hollow noise of clomping footsteps walked up the steps, across the porch. Then the turn of a key, click of a lock, twisting of a knob.

  “Hey baby, I’m home! Where are you, hun? It’s so dark in here...”

  Jackson wiped dust from the televisions screen with his sleeve as the droning tone of a news anchor drawled from the set. On the screen sat a suited man with a brown flopped comb-over who dully delivered current events from behind a large desk, hands clasped and eyes firm on the audience. At the corner of the screen images fluttered of a horde of police officers going in and out of a house like a blue suited military force, followed by a black bag being pushed from the entry way on a stretcher. Circling lights flashed in primary colors against the dark home as more and more emergency vehicles came and went. The tagline read the less-than-sensitive words of: Wife Loses Her Mind.

  “Local authorities are baffled at what appears to be another copy-cat crime plaguing the community,” moaned the lifeless anchorman. “Another victim found nude and mutilated in a bizarre string of murders, each with their heads severed at the neck and removed from the body.”

  Jackson’s face twisted to grimace at the screen as the corner camera zoomed in on blood droplets on the steps.

  “I don’t like this one, Jackson,” Ayres said sternly. “This one is different. Unpredictable. Dangerous…”